Peopleware - Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd edition (ISBN 0-932633-43-9).


You haven't heard about this amazing book? Then definitely buy it or get it from your friends and read it. Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister does a wonderful job, they go straight to the heart of project management and tells you exactly why a company fails or succeeds. My favourite idea from the book is "it's not technology, it's people". This book is one of the classics in software project management; it actually can be used in any other knowledge based industry, not only IT.

I should say that I am embarrassed to say that I read this book only now, when the first edition was released in 1987 and the second in 1999(I've read the second edition). Well you might think that if the original book was written more then twenty years ago, a lot of the things have changed and the book is not actual today anymore. Indeed the technology evolved, a lot has changed, new management methods and theories were created, but what about the people? As you might have guessed from the title, Peopleware is all about the people. And it strikes how precise the authors were, because when you read the book you can find their examples in your daily work life today, more then twenty years later. Of course the book won't do the impact as it might have done ten years ago if you read it today, but never the less it's definitely worth reading. Don't be mistaken that this is another project management methodology, it is not. It is just about people and how they work, why they are effective or not, simple as that :). The authors point out, that the most common managers' mistake - too much concentration on technology, and not enough on the team, teams' well being and motivation.

A couple of interesting quotes from the book:

• "The major problems of our work are not so much technological as sociological in nature."
• "Quality, far beyond that required by the end user, is a means to higher productivity."
• "The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work"
• "People under time pressure don't work better; they just work faster."
• "People who perform better tend to gravitate towards organizations that provide a better workplace."
• "The ultimate management sin is wasting people's time."

I'd recommend reading this book to any level manager and all of who is related to project team in one or another way. Like I've mentioned the book has a taste of the "80s", but I strongly recommend it.

What do you think about this book? Did you find the new chapters in the second edition useful?