Fans pick 100 books like The Phoenix Project

By Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford

Here are 100 books that The Phoenix Project fans have personally recommended if you like The Phoenix Project. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

George Finney Author Of Project Zero Trust: A Story about a Strategy for Aligning Security and the Business

From my list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in cybersecurity for over 20 years and think it’s one of the most important topics in our modern world. Everyone needs to be secure–from young kids to elderly people avoiding online scams. As a practicing Chief Security Officer, I work with security technology and people every day, and I’m getting to live my childhood dream of being a writer helping people understand these complex challenges. Security is a part of the foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and allows everyone to live up to their full potential as humans. People are the most important part of security, and you don’t need a degree in computer science to be cyber secure.

George's book list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand

George Finney Why did George love this book?

The first person to ever catch a hacker wasn’t an FBI or CIA agent. It was an astronomer, and his name was Clifford Stoll. This book is a biographical account of how he took on a German hacker who was selling secrets to the KGB in the 1980s. I love this book because it shows how anyone can play a role in cybersecurity.

As a kid, I watched the TV adaptation of the book for PBS’s NOVA program and went into cybersecurity in large part because of Stoll. Because cybersecurity wasn’t a profession at the time, Stoll created his own innovative techniques, like building the first computer honeypot to help catch the hacker in action. When his book was made into a PBS documentary, as a thank you for putting up with him and all the crazy things he had to do to track the hacker, he had all of…

By Clifford Stoll,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Cuckoo's Egg as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Before the Internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive U.S. citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" (Smithsonian).

Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name…


Book cover of Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

Tanya Janca Author Of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security

From my list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely).

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.

Tanya's book list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely)

Tanya Janca Why did Tanya love this book?

Accelerate is a book about data. The authors used data collected during their PhD projects in order to prove The DevOps is effective.

They have all sorts of different ways to measure DevOps, it sufficiency, and the fact that way more projects succeed when you do DevOps, rather than waterfall methodology.

The book essentially show can be used as evidence of return on investment when modernizing your IT department. I am a person who loves data, and thus I absolutely love this book. Also, if you listen to the audiobook version, one of the authors reads it to you and her personality really shines through in a fun way.

I really enjoyed listening to Nicole read a book about to me about data!

By Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Accelerate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Shingo Publication Award


Accelerate your organization to win in the marketplace.


How can we apply technology to drive business value? For years, we've been told that the performance of software delivery teams doesn't matter that it can't provide a competitive advantage to our companies. Through four years of groundbreaking research to include data collected from the State of DevOps reports conducted with Puppet, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to find a way to measure software delivery performance and what drives it using rigorous statistical methods. This book presents both the findings and…


Book cover of The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations

Tanya Janca Author Of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security

From my list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely).

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.

Tanya's book list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely)

Tanya Janca Why did Tanya love this book?

The DevOps Handbook is literally an instructional guide on how to do DevOps, properly.

It includes security, it includes how to run operations in a smooth and reliable manner, and of course, how to develop amazing software. It gets into all the nitty gritty, with every detail you would need in order to create a good DevOps system development lifecycle within your organization.

This is a technical book with technical examples.

By Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois , John Willis , Nicole Forsgren

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The DevOps Handbook as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This award-winning and bestselling business handbook for digital transformation is now fully updated and expanded with the latest research and new case studies!

"[The DevOps Handbook] remains a must-read for any organization seeking to scale up its IT capability and expand DevOps practices across multiple departments or lines of business." -Mike Perrow, TechBeacon

For years, The DevOps Handbook has been the definitive guide for taking the successes laid out in the bestselling The Phoenix Project and applying them in any organization. Now, with this fully updated and expanded edition, it's time to take DevOps out of the IT department and…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit By Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of The Unicorn Project: A Novel about Developers, Digital Disruption, and Thriving in the Age of Data

Tanya Janca Author Of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security

From my list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely).

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.

Tanya's book list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely)

Tanya Janca Why did Tanya love this book?

The Unicorn Project book picks up where The Phoenix Project book ended.

There is a new character introduced named Maxine, and I want to be Maxine when I grow up! Her character is brave, fun, and endlessly patient as she transforms the way they build software to more effective and productive methods.

She has a family, and life outside her org, which is something I feel all of us can relate to, balancing life and work. She really saves the day, over and over again, as the book proceeds to change, update, and improve every single thing they do within parts unlimited, the fictitious company in this story.

It was a very fun sequel to The Phoenix Project.

By Gene Kim,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Unicorn Project as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Phoenix Project wowed over a half-million readers. Now comes the Wall Street Journal Bestselling The Unicorn Project!

"The Unicorn Project is amazing, and I loved it 100 times more than The Phoenix Project..."-FERNANDO CORNAGO, Senior Director Platform Engineering, Adidas

"Gene Kim does a masterful job of showing how ... the efforts of many create lasting business advantages for all."-DR. STEVEN SPEAR, author of The High-Velocity Edge, Sr. Lecturer at MIT, and principal of HVE LLC.

"The Unicorn Project is so clever, so good, so crazy enlightening!"--CORNELIA DAVIS, Vice President Of Technology at Pivotal Software, Inc., Author of Cloud Native…


Book cover of Investments Unlimited: A Novel About DevOps, Security, Audit Compliance, and Thriving in the Digital Age

Tanya Janca Author Of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security

From my list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely).

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in IT for over 25 years, creating and securing software. I am completely obsessed with ensuring that our software is more reliable, that its integrity can be trusted, and that it keeps our secrets safe. I am not only a computer scientist but an ethical hacker who works hard to create a dialogue between software developers and all of the people who work in our security industry. I am a teacher, a community leader, and a computer nerd who shares messages and lessons wherever she goes.

Tanya's book list on DevSecOps (it is just like DevOps, done securely)

Tanya Janca Why did Tanya love this book?

This book is set in the same universe as The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, but it's at a new company named investments unlimited.

It's also a fictitious story, but with all brand new characters, and brand new problems! In this book they cover security much more deeply than any of the other previous books, talking about how compliance and audit can work together with the information security and DevOps teams.

They talk about common problems that I have faced in many organizations, and a lot of the stories feel so familiar I wonder if the authors have followed me around throughout my career.

Although of course they save the day in the end, there are many parts of the book where we're not quite sure if they're going to make it or not with various characters learning to see things in new ways, so that they can make…

By Helen Beal, Bill Bensing, Jason Cox , Michael Edenzon , John Willis

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Investments Unlimited as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the vein of the bestselling The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project, Investments Unlimited radically rethinks how organizations can handle the audit, compliance, and security of their software systems-even in highly regulated industries. By introducing concepts, tools, and ideas to reimagine governance, Investments Unlimited catalyzes a more humane way to enable high-velocity software delivery that is inherently more secure.

Investments Unlimited, Inc. has accomplished what many other firms in their industry have failed to do: they have successfully navigated the transition from legacy ways of working to the digital frontier. With the help of DevOps practices, Investments Unlimited delivers…


Book cover of Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon

George Finney Author Of Project Zero Trust: A Story about a Strategy for Aligning Security and the Business

From my list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in cybersecurity for over 20 years and think it’s one of the most important topics in our modern world. Everyone needs to be secure–from young kids to elderly people avoiding online scams. As a practicing Chief Security Officer, I work with security technology and people every day, and I’m getting to live my childhood dream of being a writer helping people understand these complex challenges. Security is a part of the foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and allows everyone to live up to their full potential as humans. People are the most important part of security, and you don’t need a degree in computer science to be cyber secure.

George's book list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand

George Finney Why did George love this book?

This isn’t just the story of the first cyberweapon ever launched by one country against another; it’s actually two detective stories woven together.

I loved how Zetter blends the stories of the cybersecurity companies trying to figure out how it was discovered and what the cyberweapon did, together with the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency to track down the weird anomalies popping up in Iran’s nuclear program.

This book is a lot like The Godfather in terms of storytelling. You don’t need to know what a “Zero Day” is to get something out of it.

By Kim Zetter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Countdown to Zero Day as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb. 

“Immensely enjoyable . . . Zetter turns a complicated and technical cyber story into an engrossing whodunit.”—The Washington Post
 
The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm…


If you love Gene Kim...

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Book cover of Trial, Error, and Success: 10 Insights into Realistic Knowledge, Thinking, and Emotional Intelligence

Trial, Error, and Success By Sima Dimitrijev, PhD, Maryann Karinch,

Everything in nature evolves by trial, error, and success—from fundamental physics, through evolution in biology, to how people learn, think, and decide.

This book presents a way of thinking and realistic knowledge that our formal education shuns. Stepping beyond this ignorance, the book shows how to deal with and even…

Book cover of Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers

Michael Wolk

From my list on feed your internet paranoia.

Why am I passionate about this?

Researching DevilsGame, about an Internet meltdown caused by an unknown evil, I exposed myself to some harrowing truths. I learned how astonishingly frail our internet ecosystem is and how imperiled it is by bad actors who have burrowed deeply and often invisibly into its infrastructure. So, beyond writing a fictional thriller, I was moved to ring a warning bell! And I hope by formatting DevilsGame as “hyperlinked fiction,” mixing real news sites with fictional sites created for the novel, readers will experience the story in a way that parallels and parodies the way we experience real, live crises these days: navigating from fact to fiction, often without observing the boundaries.

Michael's book list on feed your internet paranoia

Michael Wolk Why did Michael love this book?

I found myself catching my breath as I read this riveting nonfiction tale chronicling "perhaps the first true, wide-scale cyberwar in history,” launched by the hacker group now known as Sandworm.

I was thrilled to be swept along on the high-stakes hunt for an “invisible force….striking out from an unknown origin to sabotage, on a massive scale, the technologies that underpin civilization,” and I was gratified by the meticulous tracing, tracking, and revelation of the Russian villains of Sandworm.

By Andy Greenberg,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Sandworm as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"With the nuance of a reporter and the pace of a thriller writer, Andy Greenberg gives us a glimpse of the cyberwars of the future while at the same time placing his story in the long arc of Russian and Ukrainian history." —Anne Applebaum, bestselling author of Twilight of Democracy

The true story of the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in history and the desperate hunt to identify and track the elite Russian agents behind it: "[A] chilling account of a Kremlin-led cyberattack, a new front in global conflict" (Financial Times).

In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a…


Book cover of Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

George Finney Author Of Project Zero Trust: A Story about a Strategy for Aligning Security and the Business

From my list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have worked in cybersecurity for over 20 years and think it’s one of the most important topics in our modern world. Everyone needs to be secure–from young kids to elderly people avoiding online scams. As a practicing Chief Security Officer, I work with security technology and people every day, and I’m getting to live my childhood dream of being a writer helping people understand these complex challenges. Security is a part of the foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and allows everyone to live up to their full potential as humans. People are the most important part of security, and you don’t need a degree in computer science to be cyber secure.

George's book list on books on cybersecurity that anyone can understand

George Finney Why did George love this book?

I loved this one because there are so many really influential people in the world today who started out as hackers. Former Texas Legislator and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was a member of one of the first hacker groups, The Cult of the Dead Cow.

What really makes this one stand out for me was how Menn was able to illustrate how our culture of cybersecurity today, things like responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities, was shaped by the hacker ethos as a response to mega corporations actively trying to ignore the problem or even suing researchers to prevent them from talking rather than to fix the issues.

By Joseph Menn,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Cult of the Dead Cow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Cult of the Dead Cow is the tale of the oldest, most respected, and most famous American hacking group of all time. Though until now it has remained mostly anonymous, its members invented the concept of hacktivism, released the top tool for testing password security, and created what was for years the best technique for controlling computers from afar, forcing giant companies to work harder to protect customers. They contributed to the development of Tor, the most important privacy tool on the net, and helped build cyberweapons that advanced US security without injuring anyone. With its origins in the earliest…


Book cover of A Seat at the Table: IT Leadership in the Age of Agility

Marcus Hammarberg Author Of Salvation: The Bungsu Story

From my list on leadership and change management.

Why am I passionate about this?

Get agile to work in practice - is my motto. This led me to take interest in Kanban, Lean, TDD, Specification by example, cloud and serverless technologies. I have more than 20 years experience of doing agile and helping companies small and large, primarily in Sweden. Between 2014 and 2016 I worked for the Salvation Army in Indonesia to help the health services there to become more effective. Between 2018-2023 I created a bootcamp for the School of Applied Technology where we trained the next generation of agile developers. I have presented at many international conferences in Europe and Asia and I've written two books, Kanban in Action and Salvation: The Bungsu Story.

Marcus' book list on leadership and change management

Marcus Hammarberg Why did Marcus love this book?

A Seat at the Table is a wonderful book about how the role of tech leaders in general and CIO specifically have changed dramatically over the last decades.

From a cost center where spending should be kept to an absolute minimum, with a strong focus on hardware to an enabling role that drives and innovate business. Mark Schwartz guides us through these changes in his normal entertaining way.

I've rarely (never) laughed out loud from a business book but this one did that for me.

By Mark Schwartz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Seat at the Table as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Agile, Lean, and DevOps approaches are radical game changers, providing a fundamentally different way to think about how IT fits into the enterprise, how IT leaders lead, and how IT can harness technology to accomplish the objectives of the enterprise. But honest and open conversations are not taking place between management and Agile delivery teams.

In A Seat at the Table, CIO Mark Schwartz explores the role of IT leadership as it is now and opens the door to reveal IT leadership as it should be-an integral part of the value creation engine. With an easy style, Schwartz reveals that…


Book cover of Out of the Crisis

Steve Fenton Author Of Web Operations Dashboards, Monitoring, & Alerting

From my list on DevOps from before DevOps was invented.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a programmer and technical author at Octopus Deploy and I'm deeply interested in DevOps. Since the 1950s, people have been studying software delivery in search of better ways of working. We’ve seen many revolutions since Lincoln Labs first introduced us to phased delivery, with lightweight methods transforming how we wrote software at the turn of the century. My interest in DevOps goes beyond my enthusiasm for methods in general, because we now have a great body of research that adds to our empirical observations on the ways we work.

Steve's book list on DevOps from before DevOps was invented

Steve Fenton Why did Steve love this book?

Before Agile and Lean had rocked the software development industry, William Deming was busy forging this new world of work.

Out of the Crisis is predominantly a management book, but it’s really the spark that started the lightweight movement in software delivery. A key concept in the book is how to identify the work system's performance, separate from the performance of individuals.

By W. Edwards Deming,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Out of the Crisis as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Essential reading for managers and leaders, this is the classic work on management, problem solving, quality control, and more—based on the famous theory, 14 Points for Management

In his classic Out of the Crisis, W. Edwards Deming describes the foundations for a completely new and transformational way to lead and manage people, processes, and resources. Translated into twelve languages and continuously in print since its original publication, it has proved highly influential. Research shows that Deming’s approach has high levels of success and sustainability. Readers today will find Deming’s insights relevant, significant, and effective in business thinking and practice. This…


Book cover of The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Book cover of Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Book cover of The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations

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