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DHQ: The first edition of Peopleware,
released in 1987, was an overnight bestseller and
the second edition is following at the same pace.
How did the book come about and what was your reaction
to its success?
LISTER: Peopleware was born
as an experimental session in our "Controlling
Software Projects" seminar, and it just took
off from there.
DeMARCO: My first response was to
feel great that we had picked the right subject
and nailed it. But the effect over time of the
(almost always grateful) correspondence that has
poured in is quite different. The stories those
letters tell are individually amusing and collectively
depressing. I have been so privileged to work
over the years under talented and humane managers;
I'm full of sympathy for those who have gotten
less of a good break.
DHQ: Is there a unifying theme to the
eight new chapters in Part VI, Son of Peopleware?
How do the new chapters relate to the originals?
LISTER: I'd say it is the change
from workplace to community. Most people these
days look to work to find all sorts of fulfillment
I never thought about as a young programmer. They
look to the job to find friendship, enjoyable
social functions, even love.
DHQ: Is there a ceiling to the amount
of freedom that management can give a programming
team before the team loses control of itself? If
so, what is that point?
DeMARCO: The hardest and most useful
trick of management is to know not to steer when
the project is going in the right direction. Of
course this applies as well to the project that
is going in almost the right direction. The team
has an innate ability to steer itself and you
need not to intervene unless it really has begun
to wander off track.
DHQ: If you could pick one insight from
Peopleware to broadcast to every software
development manager, what would it be?
DeMARCO: It's the idea that good
managers are talented and adept at building real
community.
LISTER: I'd add that people really
yearn to do good work. If you manage them any
other way, you are participating in some sort
of dysfunction.
DHQ: You two have been a jelled team
for many years now. What's your secret?
DeMARCO: There is an element of
luck in our pairing. Decent jell requires lots
of respect, shared values, good emotional connection,
and at least some similarity in sense of humor.
But those things aren't enough. I think it's also
important that teammates have some clearly complementary
skills. I am constantly aware that Tim's contributions
are in domains where I do not excel. He is a gifted
phrasemaker, quipper, image coiner, and a genuinely
original thinker. We also have some domains in
common: We're both very serious about being in
the abstraction business. We both know that a
good abstraction is worth many days of work. It's
the combination of some overlapping skills and
some complementary skills that has been essential
for us.
LISTER: Like every happy couple,
we work together often, but also go our separate
ways at times. Tom never even told me he was writing
The Deadline. A manuscript appeared one day; I
read it in one sitting. It was like a present,
even if it wasn't just for me.
DHQ: Peopleware is celebrated
for promoting management concepts that are controversial
within the computer industry. How have the debates
you've raised affected you over the years?
DeMARCO: I find I'm not so welcome
anymore in companies that make a practice of burning
out their workers. High pressure managers are
threatened by the thought that there are limits
to how much good applying pressure can do. Yet
pressure has some very pronounced limits. Consider
this: If you tell a joke in front of an audience
and hold up a laugh sign, people will dutifully
laugh—even if your punch line wasn't terribly
funny. But if you leave that sign up for more
than about five seconds, the laughter will die
away and leave you with a cold, sullen silence.
I'd like to put all new managers on a stage and
make them perform that experiment enough times
to know what cold, sullen silence sounds like.
Then they will recognize it the next time they
try to apply too much pressure.
LISTER: I don't think this is exactly
trouble, but somehow I've been dubbed a workspace
expert. I've even been on a panel at a meeting
of the Royal Canadian Society of Architects. If
you think a lot of office space is poor, you should
have heard the air quality expert that night!
DHQ: Instead of revising all the chapters
of the original text, you added a whole new section
with eight chapters. What were your impressions
of the original text as you prepared the second
edition?
DeMARCO: The French author Marcel
Pagnol was asked to prepare a revision of a book
he had published many years before. He sketched
out some ideas and then stopped, and finally sent
the unchanged original back to the publisher with
a note saying, "I no longer have the right
to make changes to this young writer's work."
DHQ: In Peopleware terms, what
have been the healthiest and sickest trends of the
last ten years?
DeMARCO and LISTER: Healthy: small
empowered teams, co-location, lots of job formation
in new companies with no institutional baggage.
Not so healthy: level envy, process obsession,
most "team building exercises," distributed
"teams," and Management by Objectives.
DHQ: What evidence have you seen that
the industry is moving in the direction of the Peopleware
principles?
DeMARCO: First of all, the term
Peopleware is in general use everywhere.
Even people who don't know what it means realize
that it is one of every manager's chief responsibilities.
I think the strongest Peopleware theme
that is actively at play in business today is
an understanding that keeping people is the sine
qua non of success. On the downside, we clearly
didn't win the sensible workplace war. Companies
presented with evidence that noise and tight quarters
are counterproductive just close their eyes and
ears and proceed as before.
DHQ: Thanks, Tom and Tim!
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