It’s been a while since I bought some books so I made my first purchase off Amazon.com. Thinking that it would really take the 4-6 weeks delivery to get to Australia, I was surprised when all six books arrived about a week and a half after placing the order.

Of all the books I had orderd, the first that I have been keen to read was Peopleware written by De Marco and Lister, a couple of authors well known for their books surrounding observations and studies made about management principles, with a particular focus on IT. Reading books like this remind me so much of Dilbert cartoons and how very accurate they are of real life scenarios (especially my last workplace).

This was actually a very fun book to read (and that’s saying something) becuase it is so relevant to a lot of issues people I know are going through and some of the situations I’ve been in my short career in this industry. Here are some good points that jumped out at me:

• Organisations continually underestimate the cost of replacing lost staff and the small cost of keeping current employees more satistifed and productive.
• Most businesses emphasis ‘quarterly’ results from all parts of their organisation usually at the cost of a competitive advantage that would result in a better long term result.
• Most managers (and hence most inefficient or incompetent managers) are “yes-men”. Their role of providing and protecting an enviornment for their team to be effective in their performance is one of their lowest priorities.
• Most status meetings become a place for affirmation of positional status from people in more-senior positions, not necessarily updates on a project’s status.
• Avoid anything that might contribute to “Teamicide”. These are things that interfere with a team achieving success (political, managerial and other environmental sources).
• Management with hysertical optimism – This is where the ivory white pillars of the ultimate project are presented to the (only on the first time) naive and unsuspecting developer.

Definitely recommended as a good read for everyone (and their managers *grin*).