Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

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

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.