A brand for your product, you need to know what other similar products are on...
Perhaps there are still managers who believe that management is meetings, training and product improvement programs and various reports. However, in our time it has become obvious that project management is primarily work with people.
How to choose from a variety of candidates the person you need? What is the optimal number of people in a team at different stages of the project? How can you optimize your work if you have tight deadlines? How to identify and resolve conflicts? How to fire a person without offending him? What qualities should a good leader have? You will learn about all this from this book, which, moreover, is not a dry scientific work, but an exciting adventure novel!
The book is addressed to project managers in the field of information technology.
Foreword
In the 1930s, physicist George Gamow of Colorado State University began publishing a mini-series of stories about a certain Mr. Tompkins, a middle-aged bank clerk. Mr. Tompkins, as these stories showed, was interested in modern science. He regularly attended the evening lectures of the local university professor and, of course, always fell asleep in the most interesting place. And when he woke up, he found himself in some parallel world, where one of the basic laws of physics acted differently than in his world.
In one of these stories, for example, Mr. T woke up in a universe where the speed of light was only fifteen miles.
per hour, and could observe the effects of relativity while cycling. As he pedaled faster, the approaching buildings shrank in size, and the hands of the clock on the post office slowed down. The plot of another story was that Mr. Tompkins traveled to a world where Planck's constant was equal to one, and observed quantum mechanics in action, standing at a pool table: the balls did not roll smoothly on the surface, as usual, but assumed an unpredictable position, like quantum balls. particles.
I was introduced to Gamow's stories when I was a teenager. Like Mr. Tompkins, I was interested in modern science, by that time I had already read many books on quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity. But only after the stories about the unlucky bank clerk fell into my hands did I finally begin to understand what it was all about.
I have always admired how Gamow managed to describe complex scientific postulates in such an interesting and unobtrusive way. It seemed to me that some principles of project management could be described in the same form. And I decided to tell you, dear reader, a story about an experienced leader who ended up in some imaginary country where changes were made “from above” in various management rules. Thus was born (my deepest apologies to George Gamow) the idea for this book, a story about a manager named Tompkins who ended up in the former socialist republic of Morovia.
Tom DeMarco,
Chapter 1
The widest possibilities
Mr. Tompkins sat in the back row of Baldridge 1, the main auditorium of the Big Telecommunications Corporation (Penelope, New Jersey). He'd spent quite a bit of time here in the last few weeks giving lectures to the layoffs. Mr. Tompkins and several thousand other professionals and middle managers like him were simply shown the door. Well, of course, no one spoke so rudely and straightforwardly. Commonly used phrases were: "downsizing", or "as a result of downsizing the company", or "optimizing the size of the company", or - and this option was the most wonderful of all - "we give the freedom to choose another job." For this last phrase, an abbreviation was immediately invented: SVDR. Tompkins was one such SVDR.
Today at Baldridge 1, another lecture was to be held on the topic "The broadest opportunities are right in front of us." As stated in the program, this series of lectures consisted of "more than a hundred hours of extremely exciting trainings, pieces, musical interludes and other activities for the newly minted SVDR" - and all in five weeks. Employees of the personnel department (who were not fired by anyone) were convinced that becoming an SVDR was the greatest happiness, but for some reason the rest did not understand this. Of course, they themselves really wanted to become SVDR. Honestly. But, alas, no luck so far. No, no, sir, for the time being they have to bear their burden: to receive regular salaries and promotions. And now they will rise to the stage and courageously continue their hard work.
The last few rows in the auditorium fell into what acoustic engineers call "dead." For some mysterious reason that no one has yet been able to explain, the sound from the stage practically did not penetrate here, so it was great to take a nap here. Tompkins always just sat there.
On the seat across from him, he laid out today's set of gifts from the company: two thick notebooks and other small things were packed in a beautiful cloth bag with the company logo and the inscription: "Our company is losing weight, so everyone else can gain weight." On top of the bag lay a baseball cap with embroidery: "I am SVDR and I'm proud of it!" Tompkins stretched, pulled his baseball cap over his eyes, and within a minute was sound asleep.
At this time, the HR choir sang loudly on the stage: “The widest opportunities - let's open the door for them! Let's open it!" According to the plan of the performers, the audience had to clap their hands and sing along: “Let's open it!” To the left of the stage stood a man with a loudspeaker and cheered the audience with cries of "Louder, louder!" Several people clapped listlessly, but no one wanted to sing along. However, all this noise began to make its way even into the "dead zone" where Mr. Tompkins slept, and finally woke him up.
Deadline book. A novel about project management describes the principles of project management in an interesting and unobtrusive way - the form of a business novel.
Tom DeMarco - About the Author
Tom DeMarco - Leads an active teaching activity, writes articles and books.
She also assists in software-related litigation. Member of the Association for Computing Machinery and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
deadline. A Project Management Novel - Book Summary
The protagonist of the book - manager Webster Tompkins - mysteriously finds himself in the former socialist republic of Morovia with a totalitarian regime, where he was appointed head of several software projects.
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.
Four Basic Rules of Management
1. Find the right people.
2. Give them the job for which they are best suited.
3. Do not forget about motivation.
4. Pull the team together and keep it in a state of cohesion. (Everything else is administrative nonsense.)
From the notebook of Mr. Tompkins
Security and change
1. A person resists change if he does not feel safe.
2. Changes are necessary for a leader to work successfully (for sure they are necessary in any other activity).
3. Uncertainty makes a person avoid risk.
4. By avoiding risk, a person misses new opportunities and benefits that could bring him change.
5. It is easy to intimidate a person with direct threats, but you can also just let him know that, on occasion, he can be treated rudely and cruelly. The effect will be the same.
Negative motivation
6. Threats are the most inappropriate type of motivation if you care about employee performance.
7. 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.
8. If people don't get the job done, you'll have to put your threats into action.
Body Parts Required for Project Management
9. Leadership requires heart, gut, soul and scent.
10. So:
it is necessary to lead with the heart;
feel inwardly;
invest in the team and the project soul;
have a nose to distinguish the useful from the meaningless.
The commander in chief on the battlefield as a metaphor for project management. By the beginning of the battle, the work of the commander-in-chief had already been completed.
Job interview and hiring
11. To hire a person for a job, a manager needs all his abilities: heart, soul, scent and the ability to feel inwardly (most of all - the latter).
12. Do not try to hire people alone - it is much better to use the intuition of two managers in this process.
13. Give new hires jobs they've done well in the past, and leave their growth and ambition to wait until the next project.
14. Ask for a Lead: The person you've hired on your team can probably tell you who else to hire.
15. Listen more, talk less. Productivity increase
16. There are no short-term measures that would quickly increase the productivity of robots.
17. Productivity improvement is the result of a long-term effort.
18. Any performance booster that promises immediate results is a scam.
Management of risks
19. To manage a project, it is enough to manage its risks.
20. Create a list of risks for each project.
21. Track the risks that cause the project to fail, not just the end risks.
22. Assess the likelihood and cost of each risk.
23. For each risk, determine an indicator - a symptom by which you can determine that the risk is turning into a problem.
24. Appoint a dedicated person to manage risk and don't use optimistic mottos like "We can do anything!".
25. Create accessible (possibly anonymous) channels for delivering bad news to management.
Defense game
26. Cut losses.
The commander in chief on the battlefield as a metaphor for project management. By the beginning of the battle, the work of the commander-in-chief has already been completed.
27. The success of the project can be ensured by reducing unnecessary efforts rather than striving for new victories.
28. The sooner you stop unnecessary work, the better it will reflect on the project as a whole.
29. Do not create new teams unnecessarily - it is better to attract existing ones to work.
30. Encourage team members to work together after the end of the project (if they themselves want to) to avoid unnecessary problems with the formation of new teams.
31. Consider that a team whose members are ready to continue working together is one of the main goals of any project.
32. A day lost at the beginning of a project means as much as a day lost at the end.
33. There are a thousand and one ways to waste a day and none to get that day back.
34. Model your assumptions and guesses about how the work process will go.
There are a thousand and one ways to waste a day and none to get that day back.
35. Discuss these models with partners to better understand the work process and make the necessary corrections.
36. Predict work results with a model.
37. Compare the results obtained in the simulation process with real ones.
Many years ago, Mr. Tompkins learned one useful rule: to respect any, even the most harmful of his subordinates.
Perverted Politics
38. At any time, you need to be ready to refuse work and ask for a calculation ...
39. ...however, this does not mean that in this way you will be able to avoid the consequences of a perverted policy.
Many years ago, Mr. Tompkins learned one useful rule: to respect any, even the most harmful of his subordinates.
40. Perverted politics will get you everywhere, even in the most healthy and advanced organization.
41. The main sign of a perverted policy is that personal goals and influence are put at the forefront, and not the general interests of the company.
42. Moreover, personal goals may directly contradict the goals of the organization.
43. One of the side effects of a perverted policy is that it becomes unsafe to have an optimally staffed team.
Collection of metric data
44. Define the parameters of each project.
45. Don't be too zealous at first with the choice of a unit of measure - if later you have to work with real data, abstract units will do for a start.
46. Build complex metrics based on simple ones that are easy to calculate in any software product.
47. Collect historical data to calculate the productivity of already completed projects.
48. 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.
49. Draw a trend line through the entire archive database, which will show the expected amount of work as a ratio of complex synthetic metrics.
50. 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.
The hallmark of perverted politics: personal goals and influence are put at the forefront, not the general interests of the company
51. Don't forget about the "noise level" on the performance line - use it as an indicator when determining how much you can deviate from the overall trajectory.
Development process and its improvement
52. An efficient development process and its continual improvement are very worthy goals.
53. But there are also work goals and objectives: a good employee will focus on them, even if you did not ask him about it.
54. Formal programs to improve the existing development process will cost the team dearly, both in time and money. Even individual efforts to improve the process can set the team far back. As for the possible increase in productivity, even if it does, it is unlikely that the benefits of this increase will cover the costs.
People will not think faster because management starts putting pressure on them.
55. One can hope to get a positive result from any one well-balanced and carefully chosen improvement in working methods. In this case, it can pay for itself.
56. Attempting to introduce more than one improvement in methodology is a lost cause. Programs aimed at improving many techniques and skills (for example, moving to the next level of CMM) are likely to only delay the process of getting the job done.
57. The danger of a standardized development process is that people do not see the opportunity to save time and effort devoted to project development behind routine operations.
58. For teams that are too large, a standardized process will be strictly adhered to as long as it allows all participants to feel engaged (whether for the benefit of the project or not).
Do work differently
59. There is only one way to reduce development time, when it is already short, and that is to reduce the debugging time of the program.
60. High performance projects require much less time to debug and fix bugs.
61. High productivity projects require much more design time.
Anger and disrespect are contagious. When upper management demonstrates anger and disrespect for subordinates, middle managers begin to copy such behavior.
62. You can't force people to do something differently without showing them proper care and interest. To change them, you must understand (and appreciate) what they do and what they strive for.
Pressure effect from above
63. People will not think faster because the leadership starts to put pressure on them.
64. The more overtime work, the lower the productivity.
65. A little pressure and overtime can help focus on the problem, understand and feel its importance, but prolonged pressure always gives a negative result.
66. Perhaps management is so fond of applying pressure because they simply do not know how to influence the situation otherwise, or because alternative solutions seem too complicated to them.
A project involving multiple parties will not avoid a conflict of interest
67. Terrible guess: pressure and overtime only keep a good face on a bad game. No more, no less.
Terrible boss
68. Anger and disrespect are contagious. When upper management demonstrates anger and disrespect for subordinates, middle managers begin to copy such behavior. Similarly, children who were punished as children often become abusive parents later on.
69. Disrespect and malice, according to some leaders, should make subordinates work better. This is a typical "carrot and stick" policy. But such a "whip" never encourages people to work better.
70. If the boss shows disrespect for subordinates, this is a sign that he can no longer hold his position (and not at all that he has bad subordinates).
Foggy specifications for development
71. The vagueness of the presentation of the material indicates that there are unresolved conflicts between the project participants.
72. 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.
The conflict deserves understanding and respect. The conflict has nothing to do with unprofessional behavior.
73. No one will ever tell you that the specification is bad. People are more likely to suspect themselves of not being able to understand what is written than to accuse the authors of the specification of failure.
Conflict
74. A project involving multiple parties will not avoid conflicts of interest.
75. The process of creating and distributing software systems is a hotbed of all sorts of conflicts.
76. In most companies where software is created, no one specifically deals with the issue of conflict resolution.
77. Conflict deserves understanding and respect. The conflict has nothing to do with unprofessional behavior.
78. Communicate to everyone that you will consider the interests of all participants, and keep your promise.
79. It's hard to negotiate. It is much easier to mediate.
We think that the worst thing is ignorance. But much worse is false knowledge
80. 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.
81. Do not forget: all participants in the situation are on the same side of the barricades. On the other side is the problem itself.
Project Catalyst
82. There are catalyst people. They help create a healthy team, trusting relationships, fighting spirit. Even if they didn't do anything else (and they usually do a lot more), their role in the project remains one of the most important.
83. Mediation is another area where human catalysts are indispensable. However, mediation can be learned, it is not very difficult.
84. The first step in mediation should be a small ceremony. For example, you can say the phrase "Can I try to judge your dispute?".
Humans tend to make mistakes
85. It seems to us that the worst thing is ignorance. But false knowledge is much worse.
Horrible assumption: it seems that those teams that are not given tight deadlines finish work faster than those that are severely limited in time!
About staff
86. If at the very beginning the project is done by a large team, this reduces the effectiveness of the most critical part of the work - determining the architecture of the system (because all developers need to quickly give some work).
87. If work is handed out to people and teams before the product design stage is complete, it will not be possible to create simple and effective models of interaction between employees and work groups.
88. This will lead to a loss of independence, an increase in the number of meetings and conferences, and general discontent.
89. Ideally, it would be good to first recruit a small team that would create a well-thought-out system architecture, and only then, for the last sixth of the development time, new staff could be added to this team (who would work directly on the coding).
90. Terrible assumption: it seems that those teams that are not given tight deadlines finish work faster than those that are very limited in time!
Problems of sociology
91. 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.
92. Every project needs some kind of ceremony or ritual.
93. With the help of ceremonies, you can focus the attention of those gathered on the main goals and objectives of the meeting: reduce the composition of the working group, improve the quality of the program code, etc.
94. Protect people from the pressure and abuse of Big Bosses.
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 the agenda in advance and always strictly adhere to it.
95. 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.
96. 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.)
If you happen to work under an evil jerk, hope for a miracle.
About perverted politics (one more time)
Managers who constantly yell at their subordinates and humiliate and insult them in every possible way are actually just very afraid of something.
97. This pathology cannot be cured from below.
98. It is not worth wasting time or putting yourself in danger to test the previous postulate on your own experience.
99. 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.
100. Miracles, of course, happen, but it's better not to count on them.
Malice and stinginess
101. Malice plus stinginess - this is the formula that those who are responsible for business failures begin to apply in bad companies.
102. Anger and stinginess are just the opposite of the true values of any good company - to be generous and caring towards their employees.
Sometimes the only way out is to wait. Try to wait until the problem resolves itself or until you find a way to get away from it.
103. If you notice manifestations of malice and stinginess in a company, know that their real reason is the fear of failure.
Mr. Tompkins's notebook, the witness and keeper of all his extraordinary adventures, discoveries and acquaintances, lay in demanding expectation on the table in front of him, open to the one hundred and second page. He wanted the last record to be something special, to sum up all his new experience and knowledge. However, the final conclusions still could not take shape in his head. Perhaps his entire notebook was such a final entry? He flipped back one page. There was written something that he had long understood, but still did not bother to express on paper.
Fundamentals of Common Sense
104. The project should have two deadlines - planned and desired.
105. These timelines do not have to overlap.
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.
Expand description Collapse DescriptionAward-winning Tom DeMarco leads the Atlantic Systems Guild, a consulting center with offices in the US, Germany and the UK. A software engineer and Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, recipient of the Jean-Dominique Warnier Lifetime Contribution to Information Science Award, DeMarco has proven himself to be a gifted writer, authoring nine books on management, organizational design, and systems engineering, as well as four works of fiction.
Konstantin Smygin, founder of the MakeRight.ru business literature summary service, shared with the website readers key ideas from the cult business novel The Deadline, which tells about the art of project management.
What is this book about
In short, Deadline is a book about project and people management.
At first, the book is perceived as a thriller, and only after some time the reader realizes that he has quite clear recommendations and practical advice on project management in a bright artistic shell.
The shell looks like this. Experienced project manager Mr Tompkins is about to be laid off. Suddenly, he is kidnapped by a beautiful stranger named Laxa, transported to the post-communist country of Morovia, which is ruled by the tyrant VVN (Great Leader of the Peoples).
Mr. Tompkins is offered to lead many projects at the same time, for a huge reward, giving complete freedom of action. The VVN tyrant, upon closer examination, turns out to be a young, good-natured businessman, with whom Tompkins immediately finds a common language. But VVN and Laxa are serving on business, and the dangerous type of Bellock, who embodies the worst features of a leader, replaces the "tyrant". He sets unattainable goals for Tompkins and the team, sets unrealistic deadlines, and in case of failure to comply with orders, he is ready to go for physical elimination. But Tompkins and the team, thanks to the intricacies of management, successfully extricate themselves from troubles.
Idea No. 1. The key to the success of any project is not in capital or technology, but in people
The idea is simple to the point of banality. However, it is the simple things that are most often forgotten when managing complex projects. In Morovia (almost like in) everything is there: opportunities, ideas, practically unlimited human and material resources. Only a couple of little things are missing: the right selection of personnel and a manager who, together with assistants, will make the project work.
According to DeMarco, all personnel management comes down to a few simple steps: first, find the right people and provide them with the right job; secondly, to find the right motivation that will unite them into one well-coordinated team.
For Tompkins, working for Morovia is also an experiment to understand why some teams are successful and others are not, and they have the same task.
Idea No. 2. The right recruitment is based not so much on choosing an impressive resume, but on the intuition of the HR manager
Selecting a team to work on several projects, Tompkins asks for an assistant - and gets a strange woman Belinda Blinda, a former HR manager who once burned out at work and became a drifter.
Belinda takes the job, asking for a supermarket cart as her fee.
Instead of reading resumes, Belinda personally meets with suitable candidates and selects the right ones almost instantly, referring to her intuition. Tompkins, initially shocked, later admits that he himself would have chosen these people.
Because he likes them, and he feels that they like them.
This choice of team is akin to the choice of friends. People follow the leader because they love and respect him, and this is the only reason. Warm relations within the team are very important - and therefore the leader must have a big heart. In addition to the heart, the leader must have the “inside” (that same intuition) to identify the right person and feel the situation as a whole, the “soul” to breathe it into the project and the team, and the “scent” to discard nonsense.
Idea number 3. Staff motivation should not be negative. Threats and pressure kill initiative, not speed up work
The ideal motivation for working in a team is merging with it, accepting its ideas, the same “team spirit”. The monetary and career component, professional growth are also quite appropriate. But if threats and goads are used - that is, negative motivation, this only slows down labor productivity, although many managers are of a different opinion.
In addition, if threats are not followed by punishment, this undermines the authority of the leader. You will either have to fulfill them, causing a wave of layoffs and discontent, or forget about them, exposing yourself as a frivolous person.
An ironic illustration of this idea is the story of VVN, who decided to become a tyrant because all his ideas were rejected. He complained that while he told the staff in detail what he would like, there were always skeptics explaining why it was impossible. This went on until he began to resort to spectacular threats like beheading or hanging on a hook. He never heard the word "no" again. No one objected to him, but still the subordinates did not meet the deadline.
Idea No. 4. In any organization, “perverse politics” can suddenly arise when leaders at any level forget about common interests and only care about personal goals, even if they are directly opposite to the general ones.
Usually perverted politics is combined with threats and negative motivation, although it can take more elegant forms. The consequences of it can be any, so if you can not somehow stop it, you need to be ready to quit at any time.
One side of perverted politics is the "angry boss". According to DeMarco, some leaders are like strict parents who believe that "the belt is never enough." It is they who like to set unrealistic deadlines and punish them for non-compliance, although they themselves are well aware of the impracticability of their instructions. The villain Mr. Bellock (a typical "perverted politician") is a supporter of constant jerking and drill. The employee, in his opinion, should be poked in the nose every day on the deadline for the project and reminded that he is not coping with his duties.
But just as children who are constantly punished will sooner or later learn to cheat and deceive strict parents, so subordinates will learn to swindle, and not to be quick. You can force a person to work overtime, but his productivity will not increase from this - he will not think faster. Programmers know how to deceive the authorities - after all, they, in the words of one of the heroes, are "born cynics."
Anger and disrespect are passed along the chain from top managers to middle managers. Meanwhile, according to De Marco, if the boss constantly breaks down on his subordinates, this means that it is time to remove him from his post, since fear is always behind anger.
Other forms of perverted politics are malice and stinginess, which are always based on the fear of failure.
Idea #5: Software teams inevitably have conflicts of interest that need to be handled by a catalyst middleman.
Noticing that there are conflicts in the teams, Tompkins calls a meeting to discuss the problem. First, during the discussion, thoughts are born about training seminars, inviting an international conflict expert, studying relevant literature. Finally, one of Tompkins' assistants, General Markov, proposes the candidacy of the former kindergarten teacher, Maestro Dianyar, who does not seem to be doing anything special, but conflicts in his presence subside by themselves, and he does not even understand how this happens. Such people DeMarco calls "catalyst man".
Tompkins' team still manages to get a professional expert for one evening, and he too comes up with the idea of a third party intermediary helping to find an acceptable solution for everyone. The conflicting parties must be explained that in fact they are like-minded people, and the real enemy is their common problem.
The catalyst man Maestro Dianyar, accepted into the conflicting team, did nothing special - he just told stories that fit the occasion. At first, this annoyed many, then people took out ideas and morals from each such tale, and gradually the conflicts faded away.
People-catalysts, according to DeMarco, help to unite the team, to feel a common goal, although outwardly they do not seem to do anything special. Their role is especially important for conflict resolution.
Idea No. 6. Project management is risk management
Before proceeding with the implementation of the project, its weakest points should be identified and the consequences should be assessed. Create a list of such weaknesses, estimate their cost and find an indicator that indicates that the risk has become a problem.
Many organizations do not communicate risks to superiors. It learns about everything last, when it is no longer possible to hide the problem. We need to find a way to do this in time, either through anonymous sources or through a specific person who manages the risks.
Idea No. 7. The process of developing programs and managing projects is conveniently modeled using drawings.
To calculate the risks and understand the principles of the project, according to DeMarco, it is possible to build models that will clearly depict all the assumptions. The characters in the book are constantly drawing diagrams to support their theories, discussing them with colleagues, and correcting them in the process of discussion.
At the end of the project, it will be interesting to compare the real result with the model shown, thus checking whether the assumptions were correct.
Idea No. 8. One of the main goals of any software development project is a well-coordinated team, ready to work together and further.
Projects, like leaders, come and go, but people stay. They have learned to work together, which is not easy when building a product. There is no need to add newcomers to their well-coordinated team and inevitably spend time training them. They are not shaken by conflicts, they understand each other perfectly. If in the course of work it was possible to create at least one such team of like-minded people working as a single organism, then no deadline is terrible for her. They know how to properly manage their time.
Is this book helpful?
The book simply and clearly explains the basics of management theory, the principles of working with personnel, since, according to the author, there are no projects without people, which managers do not always understand. She teaches how to deal with conflicts and meet deadlines. At the same time, it helps to recognize in time the signs of a “perverted policy” and the precarious position of the organization, when it is much more reasonable to leave its ranks than to fight the nonsense and incompetence of the leadership.
In general, the book will be useful to both the leader and the ordinary employee. And of course, the book has long been required reading for those who create software products.
What are the advantages of the book
The strengths of the book include its sincerity and the warmth with which DeMarco talks about working with people. There are many subtleties in this work that have not been touched upon by the authors of other business novels. The author has a great sense of humour, good language, talent as a writer (it is not for nothing that he has recently switched to fiction, deserving praise from critics). Sometimes features of social satire appear in the book, sometimes - a utopian novel, which slightly distracts from the main line, but does not spoil it.
Are there any flaws in the book?
The disadvantages include a huge number of secondary characters. Some characters appear only to say a few words and disappear forever. Perhaps the author had his own ideas (like the opponent of any reduction in personnel), but they are not very clear to the reader.
In addition, allowance should be made for the time of publication of the novel - 1997. Since then, new approaches to project management based on flexibility ("") have appeared, so the reader will not find comprehensive and up-to-date information on project management in the book.
However, DeMarco's book's merits more than make up for its shortcomings, and even critics of the book and Tom DeMarco's literary ability generally acknowledge that the book contains many useful ideas about project management.
