Rating: 
Summary: Great book, captures office politics to a tee.
Review: This book is well worth reading for both low level employees and managers. Although directed at the software development community, the book presents many ideas which would be useful in a wide range of companies.It's amazing how many of the situations described in this book are familiar, or are at least situations that I could easily imagine occurring in the office work environment. Yes, the book was written quite a while ago, but I think it's still very relevant today. Highly recommended reading, and enjoyable too. The authors really have a sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Guidance on Management, Leadership, and Career Outlook
Review: Lister and Demarco capture in this text the essence of why so many projects and initiatives fail across corporate landscapes - communication, planning, structure, and leadership. Most are lacking in today's fast-paced environments, whether driven by technology or not.
While the text has a bent for software development, the arguements and suggestions are valid across a wide number of management and project planning scenarios. Even if you're not able to implement their theories in your own organization, reading of the case studies and best practices can be therapeutic to see how "someone actually gets it." I have a photo-copy of one of the pages that addresses "burnout" on my cubicle wall. I often go back and re-read it to focus, breathe deeply, and plod along.
This book is HIGHLY recommended for personal reading, distribution to a team, or to your "management" at work. Very thought provoking and accessible.
Rating:
Summary: A must read for software leaders
Review: In his 25th Anniversary Edition of "Mythical Man-Month", Fred Brooks points to PeopleWare as the influential IS book of the 1980's, and says that it was influential for the same reason MMM was: The primary challenges of software development are social, not technical. Companies that forget this are setting themselves up for failure. If you've seen dilbert style software "management" and want to find a better way, I can't recommend this book more strongly. If you read it, you'll want to find a way to get your superiors to read it as well. In my experience, a great deal of so-called "management" is really shoft-term optimization: "IF we can eliminate X benefit we can save $Y per year!" and cost control. DeMarco and Lister point out that the real goal is productivity, and suggest numerous ways to treat employees as people to get increased productivity, as opposed to treating them as inhuman "Resources" and managing by spreadsheet. One story from the book: In my early years as a developer, I was privileged to work on a project managed by Sharon Weinberg, now president of the Codd and Date Consulting Group. She was a walking example of much of what I now think of as enlightened management. One snowy day, I dragged msyelf out of a sickbed to pull together our shaky system for a user demo. Sharon came in and found me propped up at a console. She disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a container of soup. After she'd poured it into me and buoued up my spirits, I asked her hwo she found time to for such things with all the management work she had to do. She game me her patented grin and said "Tim, this _IS_ management!" - TDM This book is all about the manager's role: Not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work. How to do that, how teams jell, etc. It's a pleasure to read and it's ... right. And in a field full of false promises, snake oil, and worthless statistics, that's saying something.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, captures office politics to a tee.
Review: This book is well worth reading for both low level employees and managers. Although directed at the software development community, the book presents many ideas which would be useful in a wide range of companies. It's amazing how many of the situations described in this book are familiar, or are at least situations that I could easily imagine occurring in the office work environment. Yes, the book was written quite a while ago, but I think it's still very relevant today. Highly recommended reading, and enjoyable too. The authors really have a sense of humor.
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 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.
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