Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

DeMarco, T. and T. Lister. 1999. Peopleware, 2nd ed. New York, New York: Dorset House.

Annotation

Organizing Teams to Perform Systems Engineering

Peopleware, second edition, published in 1999, adds eight chapters to the first edition, published in 1987. Both texts consist of a series of essays on the politics, sociology, and interpersonal relationships in organizing, managing, and leading projects. Topics addressed include treating people as assets rather than costs (or not); the folly of excessive overtime; sacrificing quality to schedule; the effect of the office environment on productivity and quality; the costs of personnel turnover; synergy of cohesive teams; the chemistry of team formation; and teamicide. The eight new chapters in the second edition address issues of growing productive teams; competition versus cooperation within teams; making process improvement changes; managing human capital; and organizational learning. Although the context and examples are from software projects, the issues addressed are equally applicable to all kinds of systems engineering projects.