The main theses of the book "Peopleware" by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister are:
- The main problems of software projects are sociological, not technological problems
- Treating people as personalities with their individual properties (not as biological machines) is the key to the improvement of productivity
- Working overtime by the employees does not increase productivity since afterwards they work less in order to repair damages (e.g. to their private lives) caused by working overtime. People suffering workaholism are doing so for a limited amount of time, as that is elapsed they usually are lost for the project and for the firm. Measures aiming at increase of productivity should take into account the influence of the turnover of the staff. People under time pressure are not working better, only faster.
- Even if the market is able to consume lower quality products, the management has to make sure that staff is able to produce high-quality products as that is one of the most important sources of (work-related) self-satisfaction of the employees. Qualitative software development process does – under certain conditions – not compromise with the financial and time constraints and empirically often leads to a productivity increase since "quality cult" is an extremely effective motivation tool.
- The validity of the law of Parkinson (work lasts as much time as is available) is a prejudice. Ineffective work of some employees in most cases is caused by factors, which cannot be diminished or eliminated by more pressure from the manager. Arbitrary or unrealistic schedules torpedo the morale of the developers.
- Simple management practices (more pressure towards employees), new technical fads and automation of the software development process usually don’t bring the order-of-magnitude productivity increases they promise.
- The working place of the staff has to be designed taking into consideration primarily the needs of employees (private sphere, little noise and other sources of disturbance), not only the interior design’s issues (e.g. ease of wiring the computers and phones) or the financial aspects (cheap open-plan offices).
Note: It is questionable whether the open-plan offices are as widespread in Europe as they seemingly are in the USA. I cannot derive conclusions from my work experience since I worked mostly in small companies where open-plan offices were not used. In three Austrian companies with more than 500 employees, whose offices I was able to visit, only one uses open-plan offices as described by DeMarco and Lister, other two have rooms (with windows and doors) where at most four persons are working.
Note: Same applies to personal paging systems described in the book. I never experienced such a mess.
Note: I never did hear about "furniture police" in Austria.
- Noise seriously reduces the productivity of the employees. Programming languages, experience, quality (number of bugs) and the wages are not correlated with the productivity of programmers. The best programmers are better by the factor of 2.5 than average programmers. The productivity of programmers and organisations differs by the factor of 10, i.e. size of the working place, noise level, presence or absence of a private sphere, amount of other disturbances (phone calls, persons going in and out) seriously affect the productivity of programmers.
Note: One source of disturbance mentioned by DeMarco and Lister is – at least in Austria – not present any more, namely phone calls. Nowadays, phone systems with call redirection and the possibility of switching the phone off, are commonplace even in small firms. On the other side, electronic mail is being used extensively. Both issues were discussed in the book, but the crucial point is that today both improvements do not require any additional investments.
- Cost reduction by reduction of the size of working place of individual programmers reduces their productivity. Since costs can be expressed in clearer terms than (potential) productivity increase, improvement of the quality of the offices is often hard to underpin towards high managers.
- All important factors concerning productivity can and should be measured.
- Small rooms (maximal four persons per room) are better than open-plan offices because they offer a private sphere to the employees, possibility of individual arrangement of the working place (family photos on the table), place where creative work is possible and which is less subject to noise and disturbance due to presence of doors.
- The modular design of modern offices should be used in order to meet the needs of teamwork. Presence of windows, open-air working areas, separation of the office in official, half-official and private parts are properties of the ideal office. Such improvements are not feasible in most cases, so the only possibility for a project manager is to demand an exterior office for his project.
Note: Not every firm can afford an exterior office. In small firms many projects run in parallel, so it is not possible to move a person to an exterior office if he or she is needed for other projects in the "normal" office. Many projects do not last long enough to require own rooms. On the other side, small firms do not (or at least to a less degree) suffer from unnatural offices.
- Good people are born, not taught to be good, i.e. the manager is not able to transform an average worker to a top worker, hence he or she must ensure that he or she gets top people for a project, not average ones. Managers should not overestimate the appearance of an employee. Every measure aiming at "standardising" people (e.g. an enterprise uniform) is to be avoided.
Note: I know no Austrian firm that imposes the burden of an enterprise uniform on its employees. However, certain clothes conventions exist among different "castes" of employees. Technicians are clothed different than clerks or managers. One Austrian bank even built a second entrance for IT personnel in order to avoid that customers see them because software developers tended to be dressed much less official (jeans trousers and T-shirt) than clerks and managers (tie an suit).
- It is a good practice to check the capabilities of an applicant before hiring him or she. Not only the competence in his or her field should be tested but also if the applicant is compliant with the requirements of the current project team (that can be done using a hearing). The whole team should be involved in evaluating the applicant.
- Turnover of staff causes high expenses which often are underestimated. Best performing companies promote their employees after at least 10 years of experience in that company. Moving projects or companies or laboratories from one location to another causes huge staff losses. Conscious development of an enterprise culture prevents the turnover of staff.
- Automation of business processes may cause inflexibility. Methodologies are not useful.
Note: I suppose that the authors refer to some purely american methodologies not (or no more) used in Austria.
- Productivity of a «committed» team is more than the sum of the productivities of individual team members. The goals (and achievements) of an enterprise (record annual profit) are not always comprehensible by the employees and not always motivating.
- Overcontrolling of the team, bureaucracy, spatial separation (different and/or distant rooms), distribution of the time of the employee to several projects, conscious reduction of product quality and arbitrary deadlines destroy the team spirit, thus team productivity. In some cases insubordination of a team is beneficial for the company. Productivity rises if the team works without the permanent supervision of the manager.
- Maintenance of the «Quality cult», positive feedback and acknowledgement, the elite feeling, heterogeneity, conscious promotion of successful teams and not too tightening guidelines contribute to the evolution of successfull teams.
- Pilot projects, competitions, brainstorming, trainings and other informal activities increase the «fun factor» of work by bringing novelty.
Note: Activities, which DeMarco and Lister call «competitions» now are named «assessment centers».
- Unconventional ways of working are often very profitable for an enterprise due to creativity of more or less independent and entrepreneur-like acting employees.