Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: I recommend this book to anyone involved in software development, office design, or management of knowledge workers.A very easy read for both techies and non-techies alike. Programmers and engineers will be nodding their heads in agreement. One of the few books that deals with work-space and the impact it has on productivity (statistics are included). It also deals with the management of skills within the software development group, with approaches to handling the varied skills found in the team. Give it to your boss, your CEO, your CIO, and your technical staff.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books ever written about the workplace.
Review: The book was written about software development projects, but is absolutely loaded with insight not just on that subject, but on management styles and workplace conditions and rules. One can read this book and become genuinely excited about the potential explosion of productivity, hand-in-hand with employee job satisfaction, that could occur if managers would simply follow the advice given by the authors on how to be effective workplace leaders.Alas, it probably won't ever happen. Several years ago, the large (Fortune 20) company I worked for brought in Timothy Lister to present the book and the ideas in it to management prior to the start of a major software project. Lister did an excellent job presenting his and DeMarco's philosophy. The managers nodded sagely and showed every sign of comprehending and accepting the concepts contained in the book. Then Lister left, the project started, and the managers immediately reverted to the old style: setting unrealistic deadlines, pressuring employees to deliver more and more in less and less time, and in general following every tired old management strategy that almost always leads to a failed project -- as indeed, it did in this case. So read this book, learn from it, and enjoy it (it's an easy, entertaining read) -- even if your managers are too stupid to profit from it.
Rating:
Summary: Total Agreement, Except on One Crucial Point
Review: This book is as essential as everyone here makes it out to be. However, the authors' development of the notion of teamicide needs to be seriously questioned. While there is some truth to their characterization of incentive-based systems or tracking through testing having the ability to go haywire, the stated anti-postulate reads like an articulation of the doctrine of the soviet. No individuals' performances can be acknowledged to the group? At all times it must be enforced that the only goal is the group goal? This is the only dark ray in an otherwise wonderful collection of great insights. The reality is that a balance must be struck. I know balance and shades of gray are not popular in our polarizing, cartoon times, but politically, both the extreme Horatio Alger and the notion of the great state have crashed and burned. Truly, what is needed are more plural forms of organization.
Rating:
Summary: Wow! What can I say but READ THIS BOOK!
Review: That is, if you have an interest in any aspect of software development, project management, or just plain management. Although the book is getting a little long in the tooth, the advice and observations, based on the authors' decades of experience consulting to the software industry is spot-on and insightful. The price put me off buying it for several months, but I was very glad that I finally invested. The book is full of common sense that somehow isn't so common, and the authors point out many of the more common mis-assumptions that cause projects (and teams) to fail. The central thesis is that most projects fail because of mishandling of the people aspects of the project team, rather than problems with the technology. Project managers who take the advice provided to heart will stand a much better chance of achieving the successful results they need.
Rating:
Summary: A pool of knowledge and experience
Review: I bought this book because is one of the most cited references in Steve McConnell's Rapid Development and also because people factors are, as McConnell points out, the most infuencing factors over productivity on any software development project. DeMarco and Lister have recorded their experience in people management issues in a surprising thin book, each part and chapter follow a well laid sequence of steps that are focused on specific issues and, in parallel, the book is full of useful data extracted from studies. This combined with a pleasant writting style has produced a book easy to read (I read it on a weekend) that has make me think a lot about many things that people with responsability over other people must keep in view at all times. It was nice to view my professional experience on the matter reflected on its pages. I think that is a book that must be read by the entire chain of command in every company that wish to make software development profitable. If you are or want to be a manager this book is doubtlessly for you even if your company or field of expertise is not the software development.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Overall, But Some Material Is Outdated Or Impractical
Review: This is a good book on software management; however, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. The references to the intercom paging system definitely date the book. I doubt this is really an issue anymore, but I am glad that it is not. Also, most companies are not going to allow the control over office space that is recommended in the book. This is where the book goes a little "pie in the sky" to me. There is still a lot of good material for managers to consider. The authors make a very good point in the "true story" about the manager that brought soup in to an ill employee who was trying to meet a deadline. Management's job is to make it possible for people to work - not just to make them work. I also found the information on teamwork to be very true based on my experience. I've seen defensive management at its worst, and how it was terrible to the team environment. Defensive management is a result of not following one of the earlier concepts of hiring the right people. Ultimately if you don't trust people to get the job done, why did you hire them in the first place? Most of the information is not new nor is it really profound. However, that is the kind of thing that is usually taken for granted. The authors have given the material a good treatment and encourge the readers against this very thing.
Rating:
Summary: An island of sanity in the post-dotcom era
Review: If you're working an environment you know is dysfunctional and could be better, Peopleware is definitely worth a read. This book is worth it just for the affirmation that how you instinctively know a knowledge business should work is, indeed, right on. If you're fighting petty battles against the Furniture Police, the book gives you good strategies for getting control of your cube back. Just a great and encouraging book all around.
Rating:
Summary: Deep, accurate, pleasant to read
Review: The main goal of this book is that it encourages the software developers and their management to think deeply about they way they create the software. Software development is the "research", not the "production", and the stimulus and processes that work well in for example metallurgy will harm software development. The authors show the consequences of borrowing organizational processes from other areas to software. They encourage to focus on the people rather than to process. The software developers aren't "replaceable units", "plastic uniformed people". Although the textual work of the authors is marvelous, the quality of the printed book (paperback edition) is awful. The paper is thin and translucent, showing the lines from the other pages, the interline spacing is too low, turning a page to a big mess. That was the only reason I've rated the book as four-stars. The information in this book is very accurate, without pure assertions. The authors always are giving full references if they are providing figures or studies. The authors have a good sense of humor, and it is the great pleasure to read this book. The information is given in the very dense manner: the other authors might have needed ten volumes to express what Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister has put in this small book. I strongly recommend this book to any individual involved in software development, as well as "Agile Software Development" by Alistair Cockburn. These books aren't from "ten steps to success" series. They encourage deep, creative approach to the topic.
Rating:
Summary: An absolutely MUST READ
Review: This book was recommended to me by the finest manager I've ever had the pleasure of working for. After reading it, I realized what set him apart was that he applied the principals described by DeMarco and Lister and what a difference it made! After reading it, I bought two more copies, one for my current boss and one for another developer. Both were heard singing its praises to their bosses. The book is good enough that it they either bought it for their bosses or handed their own copy to them. You can't get a much better recommendation than that.
Rating:
Summary: Good advice for IT Managers who will listen
Review: Reading the table of contents for Peopleware tells you a lot about the content and the tone. Here are a few of the chapter headings: Quality - If Time Permits
"You Never Get Anything Done Around Here Between 9 and 5"
The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts
For two decades, Tom Demarco has been writing in plain, narrative English about improving IT project team productivity. In this book, he describes some of the reasons for our failures, reasons most of us know about - but rarely do anything about. Pick a chapter. Let's say "Bring Back the Door". Some of us remember the days when we worked in an office with a door, the days when it was taken for granted that engineers needed a quiet, low-distraction environment to focus on their work. Alas, those days are gone and the cubicle farm has become so noisy and distracting that many people find they can be the most productive only when no one else is around. As DeMarco says: "As long as workers are crowded into noisy, sterile, disruptive space, it's not worth improving anything but the workplace." The best part of this book is in Part IV - Growing Productive Teams. The agricultural analogy is purposeful - "growing" productive teams takes time, care and feeding. One of the harmful "Teamicides" DeMarco discusses is the fragmentation of time, the requirement that most engineers work on multiple projects at the same time. If management wants to get the productivity that is derived from 'jelled teams', they have to know that "no one can be a part of multiple jelled teams", he says. The book is a fast, easy read. The prescriptions for achieving greater team productivity aren't fast or easy. But you have to start somewhere. To start, read this book.
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