Appointment
The Deadline (Original: The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management.), Published 1997, is a literary work by Tom DeMarco on the subject of project management and the attempt to combine entertainment and education in a novel .
action
The plot revolves around the development of six software products . Webster Tompkins, manager of the Big Telephone Company, is being outsourced from his operations as part of an outplacement program. At this very moment he is kidnapped by the Morovian agent Lahksa Hoolihan on behalf of the KVJ. He is to be recruited as a manager for a new software development in the fictional country of Morovien and there, with the help of a huge development team , he will recreate six extensive software products ( Photoshop , Lotus Notes , Corel Painter , QuarkXPress , Quicken and Adobe PageMill ). His idea: a division into eighteen teams, three for each software product. Different in size and with different methodology, they are in competition with one another. With the help of his teams and the support of a number of competent consultants, Tompkins puts the management methods to the test. Each chapter closes with a diary entry which summarizes the most important management approaches.
Chapter 1
"Everything will be fine"
Tompkins is sitting in the auditorium of his company "Big Telephone & Telecommunication Company" to take part in their outplacement program. He is a EntWaK (obligation to take advantage of other career opportunities), which means that he will be terminated shortly. During such programs, Tompkins is mostly bored and absent-minded. He is engaged in a conversation by Lahksa Hoolihan - an industrial spy of the Morovian KVJ - and drugged with a diet Coke. The goal is to have Tompkins compulsorily as a top manager for the nation state of Morovia, as this state wants to become the number 1 export country in terms of software packages.
Chapter 2
"Face to face with a calf's foot"
Under the influence of drugs, two people take Mr. T. to an airplane. He is dazed and only partially realizes what is happening around him, but knows that Mrs. Hoolihan is next to him most of the time as Tompkins can smell her pleasant scent. Hallucinating , he finds himself on the plane and sees Lahska Hoolihan (e.g. as a pilot and stewardess). Mr. T. dreams that he is in a classroom. Edgar Kalbfuss gives a lecture on project management and is waiting for questions from his audience. Mr. T. answers and questions the lecture, which contains the hard skills about project management. He names the points that are important for him, which should be dealt with in project management, which would be the soft skills. Kalbfuss discusses and has to say no to Mr. T.'s questions. Finally, Kalbfuss asks Mr. T. what he would call the course. Mr. T. answers "Administrivialitäten" (made up of administration and triviality). Mr. T. dreams this scene over and over again in an endless loop.
Chapter 3
"Silicone Valejit"
Mr. T finds himself in his own bed and pajamas with his favorite pillow. All the things Tompkins had at home were in that room too. But only when he looks out the window does he notice that he is not at home. A short time later he notices Lahksa. She offers him a 2-year contract as a project manager . With the help of 1500 top-class software engineers, he is to develop and produce six software products. Mr. T accepts the offer and immediately begins to draw up claims, including information about employees, location, schedule and network environment. When he realizes that he has far too many employees available for the 6 planned projects, Lahksa suggests setting up a "project management laboratory". In this “management experiment”, several teams should work independently and under different conditions on the six software products (e.g. a lot / little pressure, too many / too few employees, specialist team / mixed team).
Chapter 4
"The CD-ROM Factory"
Mr. T receives a management diary from Lahksa to record his findings. He also meets his new, personal assistant, Waldo Montifiore, who takes him straight to his first appointment: the tour of the construction site of the new CD-ROM factory. The construction project is catastrophically lagging behind, as a granite slab is hindering the construction. The site manager, Mr. Mopoulka, cannot keep the construction plan, but does not dare to change the plan because he was intimidated by the EFN, the “Noble Leader of the Nation”. Mr. T changes the plan of the construction site at his own risk and requests an appointment with the EFN for clarification. At the end of the day, Tompkins recorded his progress in the diary Lahksa had given him.
Chapter 5
"EFN"
Webster Tompkins visits the EFN in the capital of Morovia. Tompkins wants to enforce his demands in particular for a different style of management - without intimidation - for the EFN, Tompkins wishes are only "minor details". The EFN explains to Tompkins that he acquired Morovien AG through a sophisticated share swap. He continues to complain that as a tyrant for the Morovian people he is now facing the same problems that he had as a boss, namely, delay in spite of intimidation.
For the "Noble Leader of the Nation" Webster Tompkins is the salvation; they talk about the concept of becoming number one software exporter. The plan is to bring a plagiarism of Quicken onto the market. In contrast to the original, this product should be available free of charge and expanded through constant updates. However, the necessary updates should be chargeable from time to time.
Chapter 6
"The best project manager in the world"
Mr. Tompkins tries to structure his duties as a manager. However, he does not get anywhere on his own when it comes to selecting the project manager, as he feels overwhelmed when evaluating 200 applications and needs support. He is therefore trying to win the former top manager Belinda Binda, who lives on the streets of Morovia and suffers from burnout syndrome, as a consultant. In a discussion between the two of them about the tasks of a manager, she reveals to him that for a good manager, gut, heart, soul and nose are particularly important in order to make a good selection of employees. The question Mr. Tompkins keeps asking himself is whether he could trust his immediate superiors - EFN and the Morovian government. He'd never managed so many people before, after all. If he accepted the offer, it would mean that he would have to form eighteen project teams and select eighteen managers.
Chapter 7
"Hire employees"
Waldo, Webster's assistant, gives Webster Tompkins a list of the people they need to interview. Webster Tompkins receives support in the search for suitable project managers from Belinda Binda, a top manager. While Tompkins wants to go through the prepared résumés of the candidates, Belinda prefers a personal interview with the applicants. When choosing, Belinda pays more attention to her gut feeling. After the selection, Belinda advises first classifying the employees according to their experience and only later confronting them with new challenges.
Chapter 8
"The famous Dr. Rizzoli"
Mr. Tompkins and Ms. Hoolihan think about the goals and evaluation possibilities of the planned project management laboratory and realize that a lot of questions will arise in order to evaluate the project management experiment. They come to the conclusion that they should seek professional advice. Ms. Hoolihan had already planned to appoint the renowned project manager Dr. Fly in Rizzoli. Dr. Rizzoli was on his way to Latvia. An agent disguised as a stewardess flew on the plane on which Dr. Rizzoli was on the way to Latvia. She made sure that he got out in Morovia and not in Latvia. Dr. Rizzoli had already carried out sophisticated experiments in the field. Rizzoli is welcomed to Morovia under a false pretext, and he gives valuable tips on how to carry out the project management experiment. Dr. Rizzoli spent his third day in Morovia (allegedly Latvia) with Mr. Tompkins and Belinda Binda.
Chapter 9
"Ex-General Markov"
The interviews continue and the EFN is involved in them. The ex-general of the Morovian army "Gabriel Markov" is interviewed and then appointed team pool manager. Although Tompkins thinks the selection of managers is going well, he regards the countdown screen with suspicion and is skeptical that the projects will be completed when the time comes.
Chapter 10
"Abdul Jamid"
Tompkins meets with Abdul Jamid, a software engineer who wrote a paper on management dynamics and shares his findings with Mr. T through Johnny Jay's recommendation. To explain his theory, Abdul uses an instinct model to simulate or estimate the results of a project. At the end of the day, Tompkins is so enthusiastic about Abdul's ideas and theories that he intends to continue using his methods.
Chapter 11
"Sinister Mister Belok"
When Tompkins came into his office one morning, he noticed the drastically shortened deadline for the planned completion of all software projects, which he displayed on a large illuminated panel. The deputy of the EFN, Minister Belok, is responsible for this change. Since the EFN has set out on a business trip to the USA, Minister Belok is leading the state of Morovia until it returns. Belok is of the opinion that the software projects can be managed with a little pressure and some structural changes (e.g. a large project team instead of three smaller ones per product) in the significantly shorter period of time he has specified. Tompkins is not happy about this drastic interference in his actions and a dispute ensues. Ultimately, Tompkins apparently gives in, but plans to keep his "management laboratory" running in secret.
Chapter 12
"The Numbers Man"
Tompkins deals with the division of the developers into the various teams. He receives a postcard from Massachusetts from Lahksa Hoolihan. She organized a meeting with T. Caporous. When he arrives, he is already informed of all the figures and statistics of Morovia. It determines function points for all 6 software products. Tompkins and Belinda want to develop their own formula for determining and comparing project sizes. Waldo is designated as manager of the new software metrics group.
Chapter 13
"QuickerStill"
Tompkins has doubts about the goals that Minister Belok has set for the development teams: Everyone should increase their process quality by one CMM level by the end of the year. Belok has set up a process improvement program and a QA group for this purpose. Grosz in particular, head of the QuickerStill project, has the greatest difficulty in meeting these requirements. He therefore asks Tompkins to check the QA group and his work Aidrvioli 7 last, to give him a week.
Chapter 14
"Morovien's First Programmer"
Tompkins speaks to General Markov about how Tompkins appointed the head of SEI Dr. Menotti can convince him to cancel the process improvement program. In the Aristotle Institute he meets Menotti. He shows understanding for Tompkin's problems, but thinks that delaying the projects by a few more months does not matter. Dr. Menotti offers to "overlook" a project. Tompkins refuses and calls for all important projects to be withdrawn from the program and for Minister Belok to be kept secret. Dr. Menotti says no and Tompkins asks for a workaround. This refers to the president of the institute, should he agree, he would be willing to cancel the review, but only if he receives Waldo in return. Tompkins presented his request to the President of the Aristotle Kenoros Institute. He agrees, provided Tompkins provides him with a job. Tompkins speaks to Kenoros about his scheduling problems. This suggests to radically shorten the debugging and to extend the design time - the so-called last-minute implementation. Tompkins has concerns, since he has no proof, that this will reduce the debugging effort, and his programmers would not readily accept this radical step.
Chapter 15
"Quick thinker"
Mr. Tompkins meets Minister Belok, who reminds him of the schedule again. He demands that more overtime should be "prescribed" so that the deadline can be met. He also wants to raise the institute to CMM level 4. Mr. Tompkins will be entrusted with one more project, namely the development of an air traffic control system. This should be completed by the 2000 Summer Olympics, which the EFN brought to Morovia through a brief visit to the Olympic Committee. Tompkins discusses with Belinda and develops a model that shows the relationship between mental pressure and productivity. According to Belok's model, developers only work hard when they are under enormous pressure. Belinda creates a simple model according to which light to moderate mental pressure should increase work performance by 15-25%. Strong mental pressure, on the other hand, should lead to a very rapid, very high increase, but then immediately cause a drop in performance, as employees fail or give up due to burnout and overload. Belinda cites herself as an example. In order to be able to work with secure data, Belinda commissions Waldo to create the corresponding calculations with the help of his archaeological data. He compared all projects with and without pressure. According to his findings, pressure has no effect at all. They then consulted the oracle. The answer was “People who are under pressure don't think faster.” Too much overtime therefore even leads to a reduction in productivity, as employees now waste more time due to the larger daily time windows.
Chapter 16
"Planning the Summer Games"
Tompkins exchanges views with Ms. Alber, PMill's product manager, as the PMill-A team manager is stressed. He gets angry and abusive at times. His employees are beginning to fear him and there are transfer requests from individual A-Team members. The A-Team managers with too many employees are overloaded and stressed.
Lahska stole the NASPlan specifications from the American aviation authority on behalf of Belok in order to speed up the air traffic control project. After Belinda, together with the project group and Tompkins, have dealt with the specifications, he and the team unanimously realize that they do not readily understand the specification. Only Belinda thinks this is all nonsense, whereupon a discussion between Belinda and Tompkins starts as to whether this specification is to be called such or not. In the end, Belinda Tompkins can convince that this specification does not specify anything, only vague suggestions.
Belinda's answer to the question of how such specifications could be approved is: Everyone's self-doubt that they did not understand something although there is nothing to understand. One reason for ambiguous specifications lies in unresolved conflicts between various interest groups, because one cannot or does not want to resolve them, one leaves the questions open.
Chapter 17
"The Guru of Conflict Resolution"
Tompkins, Binda and Markov think about ways of resolving conflicts. There are ways and means for everything, but in IT there are few starting points for conflict resolution, which is why they want to train themselves to become conflict resolution experts. Binda suggests Dr. Seeking Larry Boheme, the inventor of the win-win method. After Tompkins met with Dr. Boheme has given him the following food for thought:
Conflicts:
- When multiple parties are involved in a development effort, conflicts of interest are inevitable.
- The area of system development and installation is particularly prone to conflict.
- Most systems development organizations have poor conflict resolution skills.
- Conflicts deserve respect. Conflicts are not a sign of unprofessional behavior.
- Make it clear from the outset that the terms and conditions of everyone involved are respected. Make sure that all win conditions, small as well as large, are put on the table.
- Negotiations are difficult; Mediation is easy.
- Make it clear from the start: If win terms exclude each other in whole or in part, the parties will be expected to mediate to resolve the conflict.
- Very important: we are both on the same side; it is the problem that is on the other side.
Chapter 18
"Maestro Diyeniar"
Chapter 19
"The part and the whole"
Chapter 20
"Projects need rituals"
Webster receives a fax from Lahksa. He learns that she is sending an experienced advisor to him. This is Harry Winnipeg, a well-known writer in the software industry. He is supposed to help Webster identify problems and solve them. The first thing he recommends is stop PMILL-A because the project is already dead. Webster declines because he has to keep the project alive for political reasons. Winnipeg then defines this project as a zombie. Both attend a meeting in which no results are reported. Winnipeg takes over and explains the flow of a successful meeting. Winnipeg recommends that the project adhere to a ritual.
Chapter 21
"The final spurt begins"
Lahksa returns surprisingly. She explains to Webster that she moved Belock out of the way and that he now has room to act. You and Belinda discuss how to integrate the A-Groups into the other teams. After the restructuring of the project everything is going so well that Webster and Belinda almost feel superfluous. Webster, Molly and Kenoros discuss the progress of the project and find that they can skip the inspections since no more mistakes are made. At the end of the chapter, Webster thanks Lahksa for helping Belock.
Chapter 22
"The Hottest IPO of the Year"
QuickerStill-B-Team, QuickerStill-C and PMill-C will be ready by May 30th. Webster believes that every project has an ideal goal as well as a deadline. The EFN is now back in the country and has Mr. T. ordered to his office. What worries Webster, however, is that the entire management floor is overjoyed, which for him means that something bad has happened or will happen. He should be right with his fears, because the EFN wants Morovien AG to go public. EFN describes this as the hottest IPO of the year. Mr. T. is not enthusiastic about this situation at first, but EFN convinces him by informing him that Mr. T. owns half a percent of the issued shares (fifty thousand shares at an issue price of fourteen dollars each). EFN continues to plan to distribute small blocks of shares to all employees as it has approximately thirty thousand bonus shares. Prior to the IPO, however, Mr. T. will be terminated and will be succeeded by Melissa Alber. However, Mr. T. would train them for about another month. The next project that EFN wanted to start was to make Bulgaria an AG, but someone else comes before it. So Mr. T. suggests to make the USA an AG. But EFN has another problem, and that is that its Minister of Internal Affairs has been on sick leave for four months and he needs a new minister. Mr. T. suggests Gabriel Markov. That evening Mr. T. receives a call from the former Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister Belok. He wants to order him that Mr. T's people should leave the offices by Friday, as he rents them out on inhumane conditions. However, Mister Belok only wants a tight and strong organization, whereas Mr. T. uses a productive and collaborative organization to achieve his goals.
Chapter 23
"Stopover in Riga"
The last chapter is about Mr. T's last night in Morovia. After a lavish party, he gives his notebook to a journalist and in a dream catches some glimpses into the future. The next morning he goes on the flight home. As almost to be expected, he is kidnapped again by Lahksa - this time to Bulgaria - where he is or is to be made by Lahksa to the Bulgarian EFN, the BEFN. Mr. T would only like to accept this task, however, if Lahksa accepts a role for him in return: Co-EFN and wife. Of course, she immediately accepts this offer and shows him the "royal apartments". He carries her over the threshold.
Project management techniques
A variety of project management techniques are described in the novel.
Chapter 1
Methods of recording the current situation serve to objectively determine a current problem.
When creating a new project, the important task of the project manager is to select the right people or employees so that he can be sure that his project will be successfully carried out. In addition, the project management technique of " human resources " is of great importance.
Sizing / Outsourcing : Example: Upsizing / Downsizing = increase in staff / downsizing of staff
Chapter 2
In Chapter 2, various management techniques are used in the implementation of the various project sections (e.g. personnel finding, team building, project implementation). A distinction is made between hard and soft skills.
These are the hard skills (quantitative techniques) of project management:
- Gantt chart
- PERT chart
- Status report
- HR management
- meeting
- Timesheet
- documentation
- Project milestones
- quality control
- Project management
- Email -Use
- Project tracking
- Administrativeities: A made-up word that merges administration and trivialities .
Soft skills (qualitative project management techniques): The success of the project is also largely determined by the personal characteristics and skills ("soft factors") of all those involved, including the project manager.
- motivation
- Personnel selection
- team building
- Coordination of tasks and employees
Chapter 3
The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was developed in the 1990s by the US Department of Defense in order to be able to assess the quality of software suppliers in a standardized manner. It describes the level of maturity of the skill in five stages, starting with simple, unstructured programming through to the standardized and constantly optimized software development process. Meanwhile, the CMM is also applied to companies outside of the software industry and can be used as a basis for assessing process and project competence of a company.
Chapter 4
"Hard skills" (quantitative techniques of project management (time and money)):
- Scheduling coordination of various sub-processes with the help of bar charts ( GANTT )
- Use of network plans / network plan techniques for project tracking
- Quality management and quality assurance ( Capability Maturity Model )
Chapter 5
- Oppression of a people in order to increase the will to work.
- Software replica of well-selling products; No law prohibits us from developing a product replica from scratch
- Sales strategy (price competition); Products are offered free of charge to secure market share
Project methods: EFN suggests to Mr. Tompkins to make a replica of the product with one or two cosmetic changes so that the product is not identical to the existing products from Intuit. The accounting program Quicken has already been sold millions of times, it runs on PCs and Macs and Suns and other Unix computers. So everyone who has a computer owns this program. EFN advises a price competition. Since the existing product costs $ 29.95, they are offering it for free.
Chapter 6
Recruitment; the following factors play a role:
- Project size
- 1500 employees are divided into a total of 18 groups. A manager is assigned to each group. There are six main projects that are worked on in the project management laboratory by 3 competing groups each, each with different resources and specifications. The aim of this project management laboratory is to find out under which conditions a project team works most efficiently.
- Project manager
- 18 project managers have to be selected from around 200 applicants or software managers.
- Selection criteria:
- CV, work experience, success rate
- Wage expectations
- Gut feeling
- Concept of "management"
- Other relevant topics in the context of recruiting are espionage and headhunting . Problems can be caused by stakeholders ( magic triangle ).
- Project team
- When composing a project team, criteria such as curriculum vitae, qualifications, age and (team) experience can be considered.
- team building
- A team is characterized by team spirit, a shared vision and the need for community
Chapter 7
Chapter 7 describes how to conduct an interview and gives the following tips on recruiting :
- "Anyone who hires staff needs all body parts that are relevant for management: heart, soul, nose and stomach (especially the gut feeling)."
- "Don't try to do it alone - two bellies / people are better than one."
- "Talking is silver, listening is gold."
- "Ask for recommendations: Perhaps the person you like most can suggest other good candidates."
- "Ask new hires to lead a project whose requirements are exactly the same as they have previously met and to postpone challenging goals this once."
Chapter 8
Process improvement
- Improvement of work processes
- Increase in staff from CMM level 2 to 3
Common models
- work in groups
- Just-in-time , just-in-sequence
- Continuous Flow Manufacturing (CFM)
- Process cost accounting and total cost of ownership
Chapter 9
- Association of at least two people
- Members contribute to the achievement of the team goals with their respective skills
- The structure of the team is task and goal-oriented
- Influencing the team or individual members taking into account the group situation
- Is done by the managers
- Management tools - e.g. B. Instructions, incentives (remuneration, motivation), information, discussions, delegating , praise, criticism, sanctions , assessments
- Group members and their structure - e.g. B. Motives, knowledge, skills, expectations, role characteristics, drives and health
- Team as a whole: group size, group task, group cohesion and composition of the group.
- Situation of the team: private environment of the group, work situation, overall situation of the organization and its environment (e.g. economic situation)
- Fulfillment of goals - e.g. B. better grades, more turnover , higher performance, less absenteeism in the team and satisfaction of the group members
Chapter 10
Modeling and simulation of development processes
The modeling of sub-processes is used to identify influencing factors and determine their impact on processes. It is about recognizing and forecasting structures and effects that can be recorded in terms of values. The simulation offers the possibility to create and carry out a theoretical experiment from a developed model . The knowledge gained can give an overview of the course and impact, as well as information about relationships.
Incorporation of instincts into models
Often decisions are made on the basis of an instinct that is expanded and trained through experience. This ability makes it possible, among other things, to instinctively correctly assess or predict reality or processes. These instincts can be a helpful extension of the process simulation, as certain influences and effects can be predicted through experience. Often, however, the predicted outcomes cannot be quantified. In order to be able to deliver a reliable result, one tries to translate these instincts into an action model and to integrate them into the simulation. This model can provide sets of values that are used to accurately match expectations.
Refinement of the instinct models
The results from a simulation can be matched and compared with the predicted results of the instinct base. Any deviations that arise can then be examined for their cause. The instinct base has a natural margin of error and often cannot be expressed in exact values. With the help of the knowledge gained from the model, this instinctive base can be trained to better analyze processes. This makes the operation of the instinct clearer and more accurate models can be made.
Chapter 11
- Differentiation between objective and formal objectives
Chapter 12
- Measure the size of each product by dividing it into function points
- The appropriate tool for this is the metric
- Creation of trend lines to predict the development effort
- Fluctuations in the trend lines can serve as an indication of the necessary tolerance in the extrapolation
Chapter 13
- Process improvements should be sought continuously
- Process improvements or the necessity should be noticed by the employees themselves and not only when they are asked to do so
- Process improvement programs cost time and are expensive, they can also lead to setbacks in individual projects and usually cost more than they are useful
- at most, a project can hope to benefit from the method improvement in such a way that the time and money invested in the process improvement will pay off at a later point in time
- A project usually cannot achieve more than one method improvement within its duration, with programs that aim to improve several skills (raising by one CMM level), the probability that these projects will be completed at a later point in time than without process improvement programs is high
- Standardized processes mean that employees cannot take shortcuts
- In overstaffed projects, there is a risk that standard processes will be stubbornly adhered to if they generate enough work to keep all employees busy
- COBIT
- Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) as a compilation of technical instructions for the optimal operation of IT solutions
Quality assurance means securing the quality that has already been achieved.
- An attempt is made to build on previous successes and to maintain existing quality requirements.
- An attempt is made to keep level 2 of the CMM in all projects.
- eTOM (enhanced Telecom Operations Map)
- is a framework for business processes of companies in the field of telecommunications and IT services, which is published by the TeleManagement Forum
- is based on the fact that telecommunications and IT companies often have to exchange data in order to provide a service to an end customer across a process chain
- Prerequisite: transparency of business processes
- sees itself as an offer for the benefit of all involved
- Prince2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) 2009
- is a widespread, process-oriented and freely scalable project management method
- forms a structured framework around the respective project and gives the members of the project management team specific recommendations for action for each project phase based on the process model
- The method is developed and further developed according to the best practice concept
- The method is owned by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)
- Everyone is free to use the method
- is one of the leading project management methods worldwide
- deals with the management, control and organization of a project
- Phases of software development
- serves as a measurable quality standard for IT Service Management ( ITSM )
- Certification is only possible for organizational units
- the certificate must be renewed every three years
Chapter 14
Last minute implementation
In order to shorten the project process significantly, it is necessary to implement time-saving measures. One possible method is the last minute implementation.
The actual debugging time at the end of the project is shortened in favor of a much longer design phase. This means that interface bugs are fixed in the design. Local errors are then corrected in the debugging phase.
The longer design phase shortens the programming and debugging phase, since programming is only the implementation of the design in source code and fewer errors occur in debugging . This shortens the overall duration of the project.
The fictional country of Morovia
The novel "The Appointment" is set in the fictional Morovia.
The corporate form of Morovien is communism and later capitalism as the country is transformed into a stock corporation .
“You can then swap your shares for similar shares in another company, and that won't be checked. That's why I approached the previous government of this country, the generals, and got them to convert Morovien into a public company. "
The EFN (Head of State of Morovia) is a "tyrant" who bought the land by buying shares (Chapters 4 and 5). In the course of the novel, Morovien goes public.
"Madness. Morovien goes public. I think we are probably the first country to be listed on the stock exchange. "
One can assume that Morovia is Albania, Libya or Egypt, since the location is given as Mediterranean.
"Near the sea. On the Ionian Sea, southeast of the Italian boot. When the weather is nice you can see the mountains of central Greece from your terrace. "
Position in the work of the author
In 1997 Tom DeMarco wrote the novel "The Deadline - A Novel about Project Management".
His earlier works include a. "Structured Analysis and System Specification" (1979), "Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimates" (1986), "PEOPLEWARE: Productive Projects and Teams" (with co-author Tim Lister in 1987) and "Why is Software so expensive? ... and other puzzles of the information age ”(“ Why Does Software Cost So Much? - And other puzzles of the information age ”1997).
After his great success with "Der Termin" (9th place on the "Economy" bestseller list of "Focus" magazine in 1998), he published other successful works on the subject of "Project Management and Software Development":
- Spielraum (Original: Slack - Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency) 2001
- Bear tango (Original: Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects) 2003
- Adrenalin Junkies & Form Zombies - Typical behavior in projects (Original: Project Behaviors: from Adrenalin Junkies to Template Zombies) 2007
In addition, he published over 100 articles and thesis papers on management and system development processes.
reception
“The appointment is an entertaining book to read. The principles of the management of software projects creep into the novel by themselves and explain themselves ... For the seasoned project manager, it offers an interestingly packaged summary of well-known principles, the project novice is served an easily digestible meal that makes it easier to get started. "
“As exciting and entertaining as in a crime thriller, he describes the course of a project [...] DeMarco doesn't just tell a story. At the same time, he succeeds in presenting basic knowledge in an understandable manner. "
"The novel is a wonderful synthesis of entertainment and conveying technical content."
literature
expenditure
- Hardcover: Der Termin - A novel about project management Carl Hanser Verlag Munich Vienna 1998 ISBN 3-446-19432-0
- Paperback: Der Termin - A novel about project management Carl Hanser Verlag ISBN 978-3-446-41439-6
- Audiobook: The appointment: A radio play about project management Carl Hanser Verlag 2005 ISBN 978-3-446-40049-8
supporting documents
- ↑ z. BS 81: “He had seven people reporting directly to him: ex-General Markov and the six product managers responsible for delivering products that could directly compete with Quicken, QuarkXpress, Photoshop, Painter, Lotus Notes and PageMill . "