Peopleware
March 6, 2008
Today, I received it.
It was waiting for me when I came home, humbly wrapped in a flat usps envelope. It had come to me at last, all the way from a second hand bookstore in a remote corner of the USA. Now it was lying in front of me, on my kitchen table, looking at Stockholm's skyline through the windows. At last we meet, me and the famous 'Peopleware'. This book is almost impossible to find nowadays. Yet it is revered by many (well, mostly software developers) as a must read to be placed in the pantheon of software management wisdom together with the 'mythical man month' and the 'pragmatic programmer'. I have heard so much about this book that I feel like I have already read it. But it feels good to reach to the source.
I know of a software developer who upon meeting a new boss starts by giving him a copy of this book. If I was to choose and hire my own boss, I would undoubtedly check whether his views on software development match with those of Peopleware.
Indeed, it is far too common to see software managers who haven't even acknowledged the most simple of all facts: that software development is more about sociology than technique. I have too often seen, at my working place and other places, measures taken to supposedly improve efficiency that in fact only killed a developer's motivation and creativity. But motivation and creativity are hard too measure, much harder than project completion grade and spent man hours, so managers who mistreat the human factor tend to go on with it unnoticed of their superiors.
Anyway, for the next few days, me and 'Peopleware, productive projects and teams' by DeMarco and Lister are having a date...
It was waiting for me when I came home, humbly wrapped in a flat usps envelope. It had come to me at last, all the way from a second hand bookstore in a remote corner of the USA. Now it was lying in front of me, on my kitchen table, looking at Stockholm's skyline through the windows. At last we meet, me and the famous 'Peopleware'. This book is almost impossible to find nowadays. Yet it is revered by many (well, mostly software developers) as a must read to be placed in the pantheon of software management wisdom together with the 'mythical man month' and the 'pragmatic programmer'. I have heard so much about this book that I feel like I have already read it. But it feels good to reach to the source.
I know of a software developer who upon meeting a new boss starts by giving him a copy of this book. If I was to choose and hire my own boss, I would undoubtedly check whether his views on software development match with those of Peopleware.
Indeed, it is far too common to see software managers who haven't even acknowledged the most simple of all facts: that software development is more about sociology than technique. I have too often seen, at my working place and other places, measures taken to supposedly improve efficiency that in fact only killed a developer's motivation and creativity. But motivation and creativity are hard too measure, much harder than project completion grade and spent man hours, so managers who mistreat the human factor tend to go on with it unnoticed of their superiors.
Anyway, for the next few days, me and 'Peopleware, productive projects and teams' by DeMarco and Lister are having a date...
