The Deadline

A Novel About Project Management
by Tom DeMarco
Dorset House, 1997

Marc's Reading notes and pointers

Very enjoyable, and mostly deeply true. Some points of strong disagreement.

Opportunity Knocking, p 7-8

Getting the right people for the right job.

This is pessimistic: as if people could not adapt. Getting the people right is more ambitious, but it is sometimes the only way. And it is not desperate. I have nothing against the following, though:

Get the right people. Then, no matter what all else you may do wrong after that, the people will save you.

The CD-ROM plant, p 28

Four Essentials of Good Management:

Get the right people
Match them with the right jobs
Keep them motivated
Help their teams to jell and stay jelled
(All the rest is Administrivia).

The World's Greatest Project Manager, p 57

For most of us, the best chance of a community is at work.

Think Fast, p 197

The hard stuff: hiring, motivation, team dynamics, keeping good people on board, working inefficiencies out of the methods, meeting reduction, lightened overhead, trimming down excess documentation.

Planning for the summer games, p 209

The Puzzle of the Vague Specification.

The Guru of Conflict Resolution, p 220

We need to acknowledge conflict and give it some respect.

Part and Whole, p 254
The map metaphor: you look at it from above. Not the case in reality.

PeopleWare,
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Marc Girod

Last modified: Tue Oct 5 09:41:30 EEST 2004