Published by Addison-Wesley Professional (July 15, 2013) © 2013
Tom DeMarco | Tim Lister
Few books in computing have had as profound an influence on software management as Peopleware. The unique insight of this longtime best seller is that the major issues of software development are human, not technical. They’re not easy issues; but solve them, and you’ll maximize your chances of success.
“Peopleware has long been one of my two favorite books on software engineering. Its underlying strength is its base of immense real experience, much of it quantified. Many, many varied projects have been reflected on and distilled; but what we are given is not just lifeless distillate, but vivid examples from which we share the authors’ inductions. Their premise is right: most software project problems are sociological, not technological. The insights on team jelling and work environment have changed my thinking and teaching. The third edition adds strength to strength.”
— Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., Kenan Professor of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Author of The Mythical Man-Month and The Design of Design
“Peopleware is the one book that everyone who runs a software team needs to read and reread once a year. In the quarter century since the first edition appeared, it has become more important, not less, to think about the social and human issues in software develop¿ment. This is the only way we’re going to make more humane, productive workplaces. Buy it, read it, and keep a stock on hand in the office supply closet.”
—Joel Spolsky, Co-founder, Stack Overflow
“When a book about a field as volatile as software design and use extends to a third edition, you can be sure that the authors write of deep principle, of the fundamental causes for what we readers experience, and not of the surface that everyone recognizes. And to bring people, actual human beings, into the mix! How excellent. How rare. The authors have made this third edition, with its additions, entirely terrific.”
—Lee Devin and Rob Austin, Co-authors of The Soul of Design and Artful Making
For this third edition, the authors have added six new chapters and updated the text throughout, bringing it in line with today’s development environments and challenges. For example, the book now discusses pathologies of leadership that hadn’t previously been judged to be pathological; an evolving culture of meetings; hybrid teams made up of people from seemingly incompatible generations; and a growing awareness that some of our most common tools are more like anchors than propellers. Anyone who needs to manage a software project or software organization will find invaluable advice throughout the book.
Preface xv
About the Authors xvii
Part I: Managing the Human Resource 1
Chapter 1: Somewhere Today, a Project Is Failing 3
The Name of the Game 4
The High-Tech Illusion 5
Chapter 2: Make a Cheeseburger, Sell a Cheeseburger 7
A Quota for Errors 8
Management: The Bozo Definition 8
The People Store 9
A Project in Steady State Is Dead 10
We Haven’t Got Time to Think about This Job, Only to Do It 11
Chapter 3: Vienna Waits for You 13
Spanish Theory Management 13
And Now a Word from the Home Front 14
There Ain’t No Such Thing as Overtime 15
Workaholics 15
Productivity: Winning Battles and Losing Wars 16
Reprise 17
Chapter 4: Quality—If Time Permits 19
The Flight from Excellence 20
Quality Is Free, But . . . 22
Power of Veto 23
Chapter 5: Parkinson’s Law Revisited 25
Parkinson’s Law and Newton’s Law 25
You Wouldn’t Be Saying This If You’d Ever Met Our Herb 26
Some Data from the University of New South Wales 27
Variation on a Theme by Parkinson 29
Chapter 6: Laetrile 31
Lose Fat While Sleeping 31
The Seven Sirens 32
This Is Management 34
Part II: The Office Environment 35
Chapter 7: The Furniture Police 37
The Police Mentality 38
The Uniform Plastic Basement 38
Chapter 8: “You Never Get Anything Done around Here between 9 and 5.” 41
A Policy of Default 42
Coding War Games: Observed Productivity Factors 43
Individual Differences 44
Productivity Nonfactors 45
You May Want to Hide This from Your Boss 46
Effects of the Workplace 47
What Did We Prove? 48
Chapter 9: Saving Money on Space 49
A Plague upon the Land 50
We Interrupt This Diatribe to Bring You a Few Facts 51
Workplace Quality and Product Quality 52
A Discovery of Nobel Prize Significance 53
Hiding Out 54
Intermezzo: Productivity Measurement and Unidentified Flying Objects 57
Gilb’s Law 58
But You Can’t Afford Not to Know 59
Measuring with Your Eyes Closed 59
Chapter 10: Brain Time versus Body Time 61
Flow 61
An Endless State of No-Flow 62
Time Accounting Based on Flow 63
The E-Factor 64
A Garden of Bandannas 65
Thinking on the Job 65
Chapter 11: The Telephone 67
Visit to an Alternate Reality 67
Tales from the Crypt 69
A Modified Telephone Ethic 70
Incompatible Multitasking 71
Chapter 12: Bring Back the Door 73
The Show Isn’t Over Till the Fat Lady Sings 73
The Issue of Glitz 74
Creative Space 75
Vital Space 76
Breaking the Corporate Mold 77
Chapter 13: Taking Umbrella Steps 79
Alexander’s Concept of Organic Order 80
Patterns 82
The First Pattern: Tailored Work Space from a Kit 84
The Second Pattern: Windows 84
The Third Pattern: Indoor and Outdoor Space 87
The Fourth Pattern: Public Space 87
The Pattern of the Patterns 88
Return to Reality 88
Part III: The Right People 91
Chapter 14: The Hornblower Factor 93
Born versus Made 93
The Uniform Plastic Person 94
Standard Dress 95
Code Word: Professional 96
Corporate Entropy 96
Chapter 15: Let’s Talk about Leadership 99
Leadership as a Work-Extraction Mechanism 99
Leadership as a Service 100
Leadership and Innovation 101
Leadership: The Talk and the Do 102
Chapter 16: Hiring a Juggler 103
The Portfolio 104
Aptitude Tests (Erghhhh) 105
Holding an Audition 105
Chapter 17: Playing Well with Others 109
First, the Benefits 109
Food Magic 110
Yes, But . . . 110
Chapter 18: Childhood’s End 113
Technology—and Its Opposite 113
Continuous Partial Attention 114
Articulate the Contract 114
Yesterday’s Killer App 115
Chapter 19: Happy to Be Here 117
Turnover: The Obvious Costs 117
The Hidden Costs of Turnover 118
Why People Leave 120
A Special Pathology: The Company Move 120
The Mentality of Permanence 122
Chapter 20: Human Capital 125
How About People? 126
So Who Cares? 127
Assessing the Investment in Human Capital 127
What Is the Ramp-Up Time for an Experienced Worker? 129
Playing Up to Wall Street 130
Part IV: Growing Productive Teams 131
Chapter 21: The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts 133
Concept of the Jelled Team 133
Management by Hysterical Optimism 134
The Guns of Navarone 135
Signs of a Jelled Team 136
Teams and Cliques 137
Chapter 22: The Black Team 139
The Stuff of Which Legends Are Made 139
Pitiful Earthlings, What Can Save You Now? 140
Footnote 141
Chapter 23: Teamicide 143
Defensive Management 144
Bureaucracy 146
Physical Separation 146
Fragmentation of Time 147
The Quality-Reduced Product 147
Phony Deadlines 148
Clique Control 149
Once More Over the Same Depressing Ground 149
Chapter 24: Teamicide Revisited 151
Those Damn Posters and Plaques 151
Overtime: An Unanticipated Side Effect 152
Chapter 25: Competition 155
Consider an Analogy 155
Does It Matter? The Importance of Coaching 156
Teamicide Re-revisited 157
Mixing Metaphors 158
Chapter 26: A Spaghetti Dinner 159
Team Effects Beginning to Happen 159
What’s Been Going On Here? 160
Chapter 27: Open Kimono 161
Calling In Well 161
The Getaway Ploy 163
There Are Rules and We Do Break Them 164
Chickens with Lips 165
Who’s in Charge Here? 165
Chapter 28: Chemistry for Team Formation 167
The Cult of Quality 168
I Told Her I Loved Her When I Married Her 169
The Elite Team 169
On Not Breaking Up the Yankees 171
A Network Model of Team Behavior 171
Selections from a Chinese Menu 172
Putting It All Together 172
Part V: Fertile Soil 173
Chapter 29: The Self-Healing System 175
Deterministic and Nondeterministic Systems 175
The Covert Meaning of Methodology 176
Methodology Madness 177
The Issue of Malicious Compliance 179
The Baby and the Bathwater 179
The High-Tech Illusion Revisited 180
Chapter 30: Dancing with Risk 183
Not Running Away from Risk 183
The One Risk We Almost Never Manage 184
Why Nonperformance Risks Often Don’t Get Managed 185
Chapter 31: Meetings, Monologues, and Conversations 187
Neuro-sclerosis 187
The “Technologically Enhanced” Meeting 188
Stand-Up Meetings 188
Basic Meeting Hygiene 189
Ceremonies 189
Too Many People 190
Open-Space Networking 190
Prescription for Curing a Meeting-Addicted Organization 191
Chapter 32: The Ultimate Management Sin Is . . . 193
For Instance 193
Status Meetings Are About Status 194
Early Overstaffing 194
Fragmentation Again 196
Respecting Your Investment 197
Chapter 33: E(vil) Mail 199
In Days of Yore 199
Corporate Spam 200
What Does “FYI” Even Mean? 200
Is This an Open Organization or a Commune? 201
Repeal Passive Consent 201
Building a Spam-less Self-Coordinating Organization 202
Chapter 34: Making Change Possible 203
And Now, a Few Words from Another Famous Consultant 203
That’s a Swell Idea, Boss. I’ll Get Right on It. 205
A Better Model of Change 206
Safety First 208
Chapter 35: Organizational Learning 211
Experience and Learning 211
A Redesign Example 212
The Key Question About Organizational Learning 213
The Management Team 214
Danger in the White Space 215
Chapter 36: The Making of Community 217
Digression on Corporate Politics 218
Why It Matters 219
Pulling Off the Magic 220
Part VI: It’s Supposed to Be Fun to Work Here 221
Chapter 37: Chaos and Order 223
Progress Is Our Most Important Problem 223
Pilot Projects 224
War Games 226
Brainstorming 228
Training, Trips, Conferences, Celebrations, and Retreats 228
Chapter 38: Free Electrons 231
The Cottage-Industry Phenomenon 231
Fellows, Gurus, and Intrapreneurs 232
No Parental Guidance 233
Chapter 39: Holgar Dansk 235
But Why Me? 235
The Sleeping Giant 236
Waking Up Holgar 237
Index 239