deadline. A novel about project management

work at home 30.05.2023

work at home

A cool but unrecognized IT manager, Webster Tompkins, first gets fired, then he is framed by a random beauty, drugged and taken to the small communist country of Morovia.

Fantastic?

No. Basically, it's a project management book. In the form of a fantasy novel.

How do you like that? Meet the review of the book by Tom DeMarco "Deadline. A novel about project management!

Tom DeMarco

Tom DeMarco is the head of the international consulting company Atlantic Systems Guild, specializing in building complex business systems, risk management, reengineering, and building a healthy corporate culture. She also assists in software-related litigation. Member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Plot

The kidnapped Webster Tompkins will have to raise the economy of the small communist country of Morovia.

He has endless human and financial resources at his disposal. Webster is opposed by bureaucracy, stupid bosses and tight deadlines.

At the end of each chapter, Webster writes down the lessons learned in his notebook. These notes are the most valuable thing in the book for a manager.

Here are just a few of the topics covered in the book:

Personnel selection.
Employee motivation.
Resolving conflicts within the company.
Working hours, overtime.
Reductions and transfers of employees.
Boss is a tyrant.

How tired of textbooks!

While reading this book, I caught myself thinking about how tired I was of traditional textbooks. Rule - proof - examples - results. And water, water, water...

Healthy? Yes.

Boring? Oh yeah!

I devoured the thick book Deadline in three days. Webster's adventures are addictive, although the topic of the "textbook" was not very interesting to me.

The artistic format makes any textbook more interesting and useful. Why is it so rarely used in business literature?

Summary

An interesting novel about project management. Bright characters, humor, twisty plot - everything is in place.

Write in the comments!

What fiction books about business and self-development have you read?

November 21, 2012 at 11:45 am

Deadline abstracts

Website development

Source: Tom DeMarco "Deadline. A novel about project management”

I tried to squeeze all the “salt” out of not the worst, in my opinion, book on project management. I post it to the public.

1. If a person does not feel safe, he will resist change.
2. Change is necessary for the leader to succeed.
3. Uncertainty makes a person avoid risk.
4. Avoiding risk, a person misses all the new opportunities and benefits that could bring him change.
5. Threats are the most inappropriate type of motivation if you care about employee performance.
6. No matter how you threaten, the task will still not be completed if you have given too little time to complete it from the very beginning.
7. Moreover, if people fail, you will have to keep your promises.
8. Leadership requires heart, gut, soul and scent.
9. Listen more, talk less.
10. To manage a project, it is enough to manage its risks.
11. Create a list of risks for each project.
12. Track the risks that cause the project to fail, not just the end risks.
13. Assess the likelihood and cost of each risk.
14. For each risk, determine an indicator - a symptom by which you can determine that the risk is turning into a problem.
15. Create accessible (possibly anonymous) channels for delivering bad news to management.
16. Cut losses.
17. The success of a project can be ensured by reducing unnecessary efforts rather than by striving for
new victories.
18. The sooner you stop unnecessary work, the better for the whole project.
19. Don't try to create new teams unnecessarily; look in the team for already established and well-established teams.
20. Keep teams working together after the end of the project (if they want to) so that the leaders who come to replace you have less problems with poorly performing teams.
21. Consider that a team that wants to continue to work together further is one of the main goals of any project.
22. A day we lose at the beginning of a project means as much as a day lost at the end.
23. There are a thousand and one ways to waste a day and none to get that day back.
24. Model your assumptions and guesses about how the work process will go.
25. Discuss these patterns.
26. Determine the size of each project.
27. Don't be too zealous at first with the choice of a unit of measure - if you subsequently have to work with real data, abstract units will do for a start.
28. Build complex metrics based on simple ones (those that are easy to calculate in any software product).
29. Collect historical data to calculate the productivity of completed projects.
30. Work on formulas for calculating complex synthetic metrics until the results obtained most accurately reflect the ratio of abstract units to the amount of work indicated in the archive data.
31. Draw a trend line through the entire archive database, which will show the expected amount of work as a ratio of complex synthetic metrics.
32. Now, for each new project, it will be enough to calculate the value of the synthetic metric and use it in determining the expected amount of work.
33. Don't forget the "interference level" on the performance line and use it as an indicator when determining how much you can deviate from the overall trajectory.
34. A good development process and its continuous improvement are very worthy goals.
35. But there are still working goals and objectives.
36. Trying to introduce more than one improvement in methodology is a lost cause. Programs that focus on improving many techniques and skills are likely to result in longer time frames.
37. The danger of a standardized development process is that people may miss the opportunity to save time and effort in project development behind routine operations.
38. For overly large teams, a standardized process will be strictly adhered to as long as it makes everyone feel at ease (whether for the benefit of the project or not).
39. You can't force people to do things differently if you don't care about them, if you're not interested in them. In order for them to change, you must understand (and appreciate) them, what they do and what they strive for.
40. People will not think faster if management puts pressure on them.
41. The more overtime work, the lower the productivity.
42. A little pressure and overtime can help you focus on the problem, understand and feel its importance, but prolonged pressure is always bad.
43. Perhaps management likes to apply pressure so much because they simply do not know how else to influence the situation, or because alternative solutions seem too complicated to them.
44. Terrible guess: pressure and overtime are designed to solve only one problem - to keep a good face on a bad game.
45. The ambiguity of the specification indicates that there are unresolved conflicts between project participants.
46. A specification that does not list the types of input and output information should not even be considered. This means that it simply does not specify anything.
47. A project involving multiple parties is bound to encounter conflicts of interest.
48. The process of creating and distributing software systems is a hotbed of all sorts of conflicts.
49. In most companies where software is created, no one specifically deals with the issue of conflict resolution.
50. Conflict deserves understanding and respect. The conflict has nothing to do with unprofessional behavior.
51. Communicate to everyone that you will try to take into account the interests of all participants, and make sure that this is the case.
52. It's hard to negotiate. It is much easier to mediate.
53. Announce in advance that if the interests of the conflicting parties are completely or partially opposed, then the search for a solution will be shifted to a mediator.
54. Don't forget: we are on the same side of the barricades. On the other side is the problem itself.
55. There are catalyst people. They help create a healthy team, relationships, morale. Even if they didn't do anything else (and they usually do a lot), their role in the project remains one of the most important.
56. It seems to us that the worst thing is not to know something. It's actually much worse than being sure you know when you really don't.
57. Terrible assumption: those teams that are not given hard deadlines seem to finish the job faster!
58. Meetings should be small. To do this, you need to make sure that people are not afraid to miss meetings they do not need. The easiest way is to publish the agenda in advance, and then always strictly adhere to it.
59. Protect people from insults and swearing from the authorities.
60. Remember: in work, fear = anger. Those leaders who love to yell at their subordinates and humiliate and insult them in every possible way are actually just very afraid of something.
61. Sometimes the only way out of a situation is to wait. Try to wait until the problem resolves on its own or until you find a way to get away from it.
62. Miracles, of course, happen, but it's better not to count on them.
63. Anger and stinginess - this is the formula that those who are responsible for business failures begin to apply in bad companies.
64. Anger and stinginess are just the opposite of the true goals of any good company - to be generous and caring towards their employees.

deadline. A novel about project management Tom DeMarco

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Title: Deadline. A novel about project management

About the book "Deadline. A Project Management Novel by Tom DeMarco

One of the trends in management in recent decades has been the widespread work of project management. And if earlier any project was considered simply as a task for which a certain number of people are involved, and which must be completed with high quality, now the requirements have become much tougher. Now, in the implementation of a project of medium and maximum complexity, not only the immediate supervisor and performers are involved, but also all kinds of project managers who calculate the time to work on the task and are responsible for reporting at intermediate stages. Even a special term has been introduced - Deadline, literally translated from English meaning "dead line", that is, the deadline for completing the task, after which this work will lose its value, and the company - customers, profits and, possibly, reputation.

The word Deadline has become so intimidating, and there are so many specialists related to it, that without a specialized, scientific approach, it has become very difficult to carry out this work. Tom Demarco is a great author and an unsurpassed specialist in this matter, he managed to create a book that, in an easy, artistic form, will give answers to many tricky questions. Deadline. A novel about project management” is a unique book of its kind, both in terms of the way it is presented, and in terms of the quantity and quality of information.

DeMarco's book "Deadline" is essentially a textbook for beginners on project management, a kind of encyclopedia written in the form of a work of art, having its own plot, but not missing the main cognitive component. As the story progresses, the reader learns not only about the exciting adventures of the hero-manager, but also about his incredible work. The work is divided into chapters, at the end of which the author focuses the reader's attention on the basic concepts and the most important ideas just outlined. It is very convenient and helps to learn a lot of useful and in many ways unique information in an easy, unobtrusive way. The book will tell not only about the direct work of project management, but also about the work of managing people, about maintaining comfortable relationships in the team, about the dangers associated with the irrational use of working time, and much, much more. In this book, even experienced managers will find fresh ideas and useful thoughts to optimize their work.

Read the unique book by Tom Demarco "Deadline. A novel about project management, take note of useful ideas and enjoy an extraordinary artistic plot. Enjoy reading.

On our site about books, you can download the site for free without registration or read online the book by Tom DeMarco “Deadline. A novel about project management" in epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf formats for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and a real pleasure to read. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For novice writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you can try your hand at writing.

Quotes from the book "Deadline. A Project Management Novel by Tom DeMarco

A true leader feels the situation from the inside, manages people exclusively from the heart, and can breathe a living soul into a project, a team, or an entire organization.

Negative motivation
1. Threats are the most inappropriate type of motivation if you care about employee performance.
2. No matter how you threaten, the task will still not be completed if you have taken too little time to complete it from the very beginning.
3. If people don't get the job done, you'll have to put your threats into action.

You can put pressure on people, but they will not think faster because of this.

Problems of sociology
1. Meetings should not be crowded. It is necessary to ensure the presence at the meeting of only those people for whom the issues discussed are really important or interesting. The easiest way is to publish an agenda in advance and stick to it strictly at all times.
2. Every project needs some sort of ceremony or ritual.
3. With the help of ceremonies, you can focus the attention of the audience on the main goals and objectives of the meeting: reduce the composition of the working group, improve the quality of the program code, etc.
4. Protect people from pressure and abuse from the Big Bosses.
5. Remember: in work, fear = anger. Managers who constantly yell at their subordinates and humiliate and insult them in every possible way are actually just very afraid of something.
6. Observation: if the manifestation of rudeness and anger towards subordinates always told others that the boss was simply afraid, then none of the leaders would behave this way simply out of fear that his fear would become noticeable! (This, of course, does not solve the problems of such a leader, but at least protects his subordinates.)

We are looking for managers who are so skilled in their work that they can change the world around them and achieve harmony between this world and what they do with their team.

Concentration, said Belinda. “Just don’t think about anything, and everything will work out by itself.

Find the right people. Then, no matter what you do, no matter what mistakes you make, people will pull you out of any trouble. This is the job of a leader.

Malice and stinginess
1. Malice plus stinginess is the formula that those who are responsible for business failures begin to apply in bad companies.
2. Anger and stinginess are just the opposite of the true values of any good company - to be generous and caring towards their employees.
3. If you notice manifestations of anger and stinginess in the company, know that their real reason is the fear of failure.

Now, then, most errors are interaction errors, that's the point. This means that the main errors occur during the design of the system. It would be absurd to think that during code review it is possible to analyze the architecture of the entire system. These are your own words. Design analysis should be carried out separately, then you need to catch the errors that are present in it. Why is code review considered effective? Because at this stage, fixing design errors is a little easier than during testing. But our design process has become more formal. We conduct a thorough review of architectural decisions, and not at the time of writing the code, but at the time of design. That is why we have practically no errors. So, checking the code is a waste of time.

They all knew very well from the very beginning that only one team would come out victorious and release the finished product. The PMill-A team, for example, already knows that they won't be the first of the three. I think that the rest of the A-teams do not flatter themselves with hopes of success. So we need to present this as salvaging valuable professional resources. We remove them from unnecessary work and transfer them to where their participation is really needed and even necessary.

All the principles of good management are described here in an interesting and unobtrusive form of a business novel. The author - Tom Demarco - has already written 13 books, but Deadline considers his most powerful book. He is sure that reading it will add two whole years of excellent managerial experience to you, and an exciting plot and illustrative examples will be more useful than any textbook.

It is no coincidence that this book has become a reference book for hundreds of thousands of managers around the globe. It is included in the required reading list for the Project Management course in many business schools around the world. Chairman of the board
Directors of Sberbank noted it as one of the best business books and added it to the Sberbank library.

If you only want to read one book on project management, read this one.

Why we decided to publish this book

This is just a godsend for a manager who is tired of reading obsessive manuals and success stories, and zen parables about management are not close to him in spirit.

Who is this book for?

For everyone who manages projects (especially in the IT field).

And for those who participate in projects.

From the author

Mr. Tompkins' eyes lit up.

— An experiment... One team works under tight control, another under weak control, the third one is practically free, and all three are working on the same task. We'll see which one finishes the fastest. All my life I dreamed of doing something like this. You can get too many people on one team, too few people on another, just as many as I think you need on a third...

- In one team, recruit only experienced specialists, in the other - experienced and beginners, - continued Laxa.

But Mr. Tompkins himself was already imbued with the idea and was not going to stop.

- In one recruit people who have already worked together, and see how they will compete with a team where no one knew each other before. Laxa, if we do this, we can unravel one of the greatest mysteries of management. We could understand why some projects succeed and others don't.

Everything is in your hands, Webster. You can experiment with all of Morovia,” Laxa nodded towards Silicon Glade. — Here it is, the world's first Project Management Laboratory.

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