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THE LEGACY of the nineties has been a dangerous corporate delusion: the idea that organizations are effective only to the extent that all their workers are totally and eternally busy. Read the first page
Concordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Customer Reviews
Tom DeMarco, co-author (with Tim Lister) of the magnificent "Peopleware", has done it again. Although "Slack" runs a little over 200 pages, you will probably read it in less than four hours because it is actually quite hard to put down. You will keep on thinking, "Yes, I've seen that!" and "Those words ring a bell".
In the course of his consultancy practice, which has taken him into many organizations including Apple, HP, Lucent and IBM, DeMarco has noticed a lot of counterproductive management behaviour. Many acts and policies that look good in the short term lead to corporate death in the longer term. More specifically, it is always possible to squeeze out a few more percentage points of "efficiency" - but only at the cost of damaging morale, precipitating burnout and losing the flexibility without which sensible decisions cannot be made.
Faster isn't always better. Effectiveness matters more than efficiency. People are not interchangeable "resources". Without challenge and growth, the best employees soon leave. Overheads are not necessarily bad. Consciously or subconsciously, we already know these things. DeMarco just hammers them home so we will never forget them again.
I really have only one quibble with "Slack". DeMarco has no business criticising Dilbert and his fellow engineers for "giving up" on their pointy-haired bosses. Sure, employees have a responsibility to make allowances and go the extra mile - but the PHBs systematically abuse every extra bit of slack that anyone cuts them. That's part of the joke, of course.
This is not just a book that will confirm your suspicions, and reassure you that you are not the one who is going mad. It's a simple, easily-understood message that everyone in business needs to hear. Most of all those right at the top - DeMarco says that many employees have told him, "I wish my boss could be here now to hear you say that".
We have probably all tried to meet aggresive schedules and failed, well I have. DeMarco shows us why this is, why it will always be and how to take the pressure of ourselves and others and have altogether a more successful company.
He looks at practices such as management methodologies and recruitment methodolgies. I cringed at the latter. yes, i too recruited the perfect candidate but ignored the fact that he could n't do the job. One of the big messages in this is that it is people that count and that it is better to work together rather than against each other.
Heresy for the hell raising managers but Demarco makes so much common sense I would now like to face some of those past hell raisers and give them a dose of DeMarco.
Well Mr DeMarco you have given me a lot of ideas.
I was particularly drawn to the arguments relating to efficiency vs. effectiveness, and exposing the idea that "working long hours is the only way to get ahead" for what it is - a myth.
Probably dated now however, but if author has anything recent would be worth taking a look!
Another superb piece of work from the legendary Tom DeMarco. Read more
Very easy material to read and understand. Its obviously a pet topic for the author as you feel the points he makes are coming from a personal perspective. Read more
Listmania!
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