Peopleware

is the title of a fantastic book by Tom De Marco and Tim Lister. As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

If you find yourself concentrating on the technology rather than the sociology, you're like the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, "The light is better there."

The decision to apply schedule pressure to a project needs to be made in much the same way you decide whether or not to punish your child.

Easy non-solutions are often more attractive than hard solutions.

Our boss came in and asked, "Wendl! What are you doing?" Wendl said, "I'm thinking." And the boss said, "Can't you do that at home?"

The next time someone proudly shows you around a newly designed office, think hard about whether it's the functionality of the space that is being touted or its appearance. All too often, it's the appearance.

The need for uniformity is a sign of insecurity on the part of management.

The best organizations are not of a kind; they are more notable for their dissimilarities than for their likeness. But one thing that they all share is a preoccupation with being the best.

All you get for that extra money, he said, is better quality.

The paradox of the CMM is that process improvement is good, but process improvement programs aren't, or at least they often aren't.

What chaos is left in modern society is a precious commodity. We have to be careful to conserve it and keep the greedy few from hogging more than their share.

Visual supervision is a joke for development workers. Visual supervision is for prisoners.