Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Latha Karri EECS 811 April 28th, 2009
Latha Karri EECS 811 April 28th, 2009
EECS 811
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Timothy Lister
Holds an A.B. from Brown University
Member of the ACM and a Fellow of the IEEE
Fellow of the Cutter Business Technology
Council
Frequent keynoter at Cutter Summits
Wrote books: Peopleware, Waltzing with
Bears, Adrenaline Junkies and Template
Zombies
Along with Tom DeMarco wrote: “Performance
in Organizations,” and “Litigation of Software-
Intensive Projects”
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Tom DeMarco
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Tom DeMarco [continued]
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Introduction
Book consists of six parts:
“Managing the human resource”
“The office environment”
“The right people”
“Growing productive teams”
“It is supposed to be fun to work here”
“Son of peopleware”
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Managing People – Survey Results
Survey results from 500 projects:
15% of the projects were cancelled, postponed or delivered
something that was never used
25% of the projects failed to complete
No technological issue was found to explain the failure
The reason for the failure:
Politics
The term “Politics” is often loosely used to mean people
related problems or social problems
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Managing People
Both Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister say that:
The major problems of our work are not so much
technological as sociological in nature
Why do managers manage as though technology
were their principal concern?
Because it is easy
Other reasons:
Little management experience
Schooled in how the job is done rather than how to manage
the job
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Managing Thinking Workers
Quota for errors:
Making occasional mistakes is natural and healthy
People get defensive when they are not allowed to
make mistakes
Creativity will not sustain when there is no room for
mistakes
The Bozo definition of the management:
“Management is a kicking ass”
Kicking can make people active but not creative,
thoughtful and inventive
Most importantly, it gives short term benefits but
not long term
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Managing Thinking Workers [continued]
The people store \ uniqueness:
Managers are most of the time threatened by
uniqueness
Uniqueness is vital and effective to project
chemistry
Uniqueness needs to be cultivated
A project in a steady state is dead:
Someone who can help a project to jell is worth two
people
People’s values are often assessed based on the
steady state characteristics
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Managing Thinking Workers [continued]
No time to think about this job, only to do it:
Single mindedly oriented towards doing something
Often, time pressure is used as an excuse for lack of think
time
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Spanish Theory Management
There is a fixed amount of value in the earth and the
path to accumulation of the wealth was to learn to
extract it more efficiently from the soil or from
people's backs
This theory is alive whenever managers talk about
productivity
Productivity is about extracting more in an hour of pay
Managers often bully and cajole their people into working
long hours
Managers trick people into accepting unrealistic deadlines
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There Ain’t No Such Thing As Overtime
Overtime is valuable only for the last mile
Undertime is not visible just like unpaid overtime
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Management’s Misconceptions
Add staff to a late project:
Management fail to realize that adding staff to a late project
makes it later
Fear that work expands to fill the available time
Set phony deadlines
Put people under time pressure:
Management fail to realize that people under time pressure
don’t work better; they just work faster
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Time Pressure
Pressure beyond a certain level decreases performance
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Time Pressure Consequences
Time pressure leads to:
Decreased quality products
Decreased brainstorming
Decreased time spent on investigation and research
Decreased performance levels
Increased stress levels
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Quality – If Time Permits
Quality is often tied to self-esteem
Quality standards are both external and internal
Managers think of quality as another attribute that can be
supplied in varying degrees
The notion that “quality – if time permits” assures no
quality at all will sneak into the product
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Flight From Excellence
Some markets don’t give a damn about high quality
This is true to a certain extent
Industry has accustomed its clients to defect prone software
Client's perceived quality needs are not often as great as the builder's
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Flight From Excellence [continued]
Quality, far beyond that required by the end user, is a
means to higher productivity
Consider the following words of Tajima and Matsubara, two of
the most respected commentators on the Japanese
phenomenon:
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Quality
Interview with President Ray Tanguay - Toyota
Motor Manufacturing, Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTQtoeP_1oU&featur
e=related
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Management’s True Role
What is management’s true role?
A manager’s function is not to make people work, but to
make it possible for people to work
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Open Office Environment
“You never get anything done
around here between 9 and 5”
Proof by repeated assertion :
“Open-Plan DP Environment Boosts
Employee Productivity”
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Open Office Environment [continued]
A policy of total default:
Failure to address the issue by saying that the solution is
beyond human capability
IBM Survey results for Ideal office configuration:
100 sq.ft. of dedicated space per worker
30 sq.ft. of work surface per worker
Noise protection in the form of enclosed offices or six foot
high partitions
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Productivity Factors
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Productivity Factors [continued]
Productivity non-factors:
Language, years of experience, and salary
Productivity factors:
Work space, noise, privacy and interruptions
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Productivity Factors [continued]
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Brain Time Versus Body Time [continued]
Flow:
Takes around 15 minutes to enter
Time passes without much notice
Extremely productive
Environment Factor = uninterrupted hours / body -
present hours
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Workspace Patterns
The first pattern: Tailored workspace from a kit
The second pattern: Windows
The third pattern: Indoor and outdoor space
The fourth pattern: Public space
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The Office Environment
Google Zurich office environment:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7290322.stm
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Parkinson’s Law
The seven Sirens
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz 34
Hire Right People
Jim Collins: “Good to Great”
Get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off
the bus
Good-to-great companies built a consistent system …
They hired self-disciplined people who didn’t need to be
managed, and then managed the system, not the people
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Hiring Process
While hiring:
Portfolios
Aptitude test
Holding an auditorium
Don’t let human resources organization
dominate
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Growing Productive Teams
Typically teams don’t get work done, individuals
do
Why do we need to form teams?
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Objectives of Team Formation
Team formation contributes towards:
Goal alignment
Diversity of skills, knowledge, abilities and experience
Positive aspects of group dynamics
e.g. Increased creative flow
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Team Formation Stages
Forming: Team members define goals, roles,
and direction of the team
Storming: Team sets rules and decision-
making processes, often renegotiates
(argues) over team roles and responsibilities
Norming: Procedures, standards, and criteria
are agreed upon
Performing: The team begins to function as a
system
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Jelled Teams
What is a jelled team?
Group of people so closely knit that the whole is greater
than the sum of the parts
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Signs of a Jelled Team
Work is fun
Self-motivated
Low-turnover
Sense of pride
High morale
Sense of eliteness
Sense of identity
Joint ownership of the product
Loyalty to the team and the team
environment
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Jelled Teams [continued]
Jelled teams are like the neighboring states
helping each other
Managers are usually not part of the teams
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Teamicide
Defensive management - not trusting the team
Bureaucracy - too much paperwork
Physical separation of team members
Fragmentation of people’s time – assign multiple
projects
Quality reduction of the product
Phony deadlines
Clique control - splitting up teams
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Teamicide [continued]
Most organizations don’t set out consciously to kill
teams … they just act that way
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Chemistry Building Strategy
Make a cult of quality
Provide lots of satisfying closure
Build a sense of eliteness
Allow and encourage heterogeneity
Preserve and protect the successful
teams
Provide strategic but not tactical
direction
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Motivating People
Salary
Performance reviews
Job rotation
Training
Miscellaneous ideas
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Motivating People - Salary
A 10% salary increase
Stock options and other long-term benefits
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Motivating People - Performance Reviews
Performance reviews are generally useful, if handled
objectively
Performance reviews are often spaced too far apart
New approach: “360” day reviews to assess employee’s
interactions with peers, customers, everyone around
him/her
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Motivating People - Rotation
Eliminates unique roles where one person is a sole
living expert
Works fine if turnover rate is low
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Motivating People - Training
Offer training 1-2 days/year
Best organizations offer 5-10 days/year
Customize training to the real needs of the
job
Suggestions:
Accrue education days
Give software professionals their own individual
“training budgets” at the beginning of each year,
and let them decide how, when, and where it will
be spent.
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Motivating People – Creative Ways
Pilot projects
War games
Brainstorming sessions
Trips, conferences, and retreats
Study groups: Weekly meetings of
60-90 minutes to discuss technology
issues
Tuition reimbursement plans
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Presentation Topics
Managing People
Managing Thinking Workers
Quality – If Time Permits
Office Environment
Hiring Right People
Growing Productive Teams
Jelled Teams
Teamicide
Chemistry for Team Formation
Motivating People
Quiz
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Quiz – True \ False
Adding staff to a late project, only makes it later - true
A jelled team is a group of people who are closely knit
that the whole is greater than sum of the parts - true
One of the characteristic features of jelled teams is low
morale - false
One of the goals for team formation is to achieve goal
alignment - true
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Quiz – True \ False [continued]
Forming, storming, norming and performing are the four
stages of team formation - true
One of the best ways to motivate people is to provide
training sessions - true
Defensive management is an example of teamicide - true
People under time pressure don’t work better; they just
work faster - true
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Conclusion
Managing people
Manager’s role should be to make it possible for people to work
Quality if time permits
Management should incorporate quality in every phase of delivery
Office environment
Management should ensure that the work environment is conducive
enough to focus while working
Hiring right people
Management should ensure that the right people are hired through
proper interview methods
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Conclusion [continued]
Growing productive teams
Management should preserve and protect jelled teams
Management should avoid teamicide
Motivating people
Management should take creative steps to keep people motivated
and a few things to consider are:
Provide “360” day performance reviews
Increase the pay scale and give promotions
Encourage fun filled trips, retreats and conferences
Provide training
Provide job rotation
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References
http://www.techpresentations.com/2007/01/08/the-return-
of-peopleware/
http://www.yourdon.com/downloads/Peopleware2008.pdf
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/905991
http://www.mindtools.com/stress/UnderstandStress/Stres
sPerformance.htm
http://www.stthomas.edu/ethicalleadership/pdfs/Getting
%20the%20Right%20Pe.pdf
http://users.csc.calpoly.edu/~djanzen/courses/405W09/p
resentations/Peopleware.pdf
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References [continued]
http://www.systemsguild.com/GuildSite/TRL/Tim_Lister.h
tml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNAJ5QnAV0Y
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7290322.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTQtoeP_1oU&featur
e=related
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