Posts Tagged with "peopleware"

Reference #124: Peopleware

Many managers became so because they performed while as "doers" — engineers, designers, individual contributors. Often these roles worked on modular components with a standard interface, so the idiosyncrasies of each component could be ignored.Read more →

Reference #125: Peopleware

Around 15% of all software projects fail completely.Read more →

Reference #126: Peopleware

Despite working with technology in our roles, it is more accurate to say that we are not in the technology business but rather the business of human communications.Read more →

Reference #127: Peopleware

Far less than 100% of our time should be dedicated to the "doing" of a task. Yet we spend only 5% of our time "not doing" — planning, thinking, or reading books on the topic.Read more →

Reference #128: Peopleware

Long ago, there were two competing theories of value, which historians called the Spanish Theory of Value and the English Theory of Value.Read more →

Reference #129: Peopleware

Time pressure leads to faster work, not better work. Speed comes at the cost of quality.Read more →

Reference #130: Peopleware

Threatened self-esteem is a major contributor to strong emotions in the workplace. Individuals tend to tie their self esteem to product quality. Hence quality is linked to productivity through a worker's self-esteem.Read more →

Reference #131: Peopleware

Quality, in and of itself, is not the most desirable trait in the marketplace. While reducing quality of a product will reduce the number of people willing to buy, it will simultaneously increase the profit margin as less time was spent on development.Read more →

Reference #132: Peopleware

A culture where developers set the quality standard — and the standard is high — leads to higher productivity, increased job satisfaction, and lower turnover.Read more →

Reference #133: Peopleware

Parkinson's Law — that work tends to fill the time allotted for it — is not an axiom. The law is not based in data (having been written by a humorist). And it is certainly not true for software teams.Read more →

Reference #134: Peopleware

In 1985 study of software teams by Jeffrey and Lawrence found that productivity was highest for teams with no estimate of completion time.Read more →

Reference #135: Peopleware

Believing in non-solutions for productivity gains, such as a technological tool, makes working towards real solutions more difficult.Read more →

Reference #136: Peopleware

The role of a manager is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.Read more →

Reference #137: Peopleware

Due to the distractions present in a work day, overtime — or, starting early or staying late — is often used not as a means to increase the quantity of work time but rather its quality.Read more →

Reference #138: Peopleware

For measures of variation in performance, the following rules of thumbs apply over a sample of individuals:Read more →

Reference #139: Peopleware

Performance variation is stronger across companies than within them.Read more →

Reference #140: Peopleware

Early advocates for open-plan office design touted improvements in employee productivity, but gave no proof to this claim.Read more →

Reference #141: Peopleware

High levels of workplace noise correlates to increased defects in a product.Read more →

Reference #142: Peopleware

Habit, not a tool or technology, is what's important for change.Read more →

Reference #143: Peopleware

For knowledge work, what's important is not just the quantity of time spent on work, but also that time's quality.Read more →

Reference #144: Peopleware

Certain types of work — such as engineering, design, or writing — require a state of flow to be done productively. Re-entering flow after an interruption costs a re-immersion time of over 15 minutes.Read more →

Reference #145: Peopleware

Many of the tasks of a knowledge worker are performed by the left brain. The right brain is responsible for the occasional creative leap.Read more →

Reference #146: Peopleware

One pattern of interior space is that of having an "intimacy gradient" as you move from the exterior deeper into the interior.Read more →

Reference #147: Peopleware

Managers, unlike parents, are unlikely to change their people in any meaningful way.Read more →

Reference #148: Peopleware

Organisational standards such as professionalism are generally for the benefits of insiders, not outsiders.Read more →

Reference #149: Peopleware

Entropy always increases within an organisation. The longer an organisation exists and the larger it grows, the greater that organisation's uniformity.Read more →

Reference #150: Peopleware

The best leadership often comes from those without positional authority. These leaders are chiefly the catalysts for action, not the directors of it. They exhibit leadership by stepping up for the task, doing it well, and doing so with the interests of those they are leading in mind.Read more →

Reference #151: Peopleware

Aptitude test during the hiring process can predict success in the immediate role but not in those that follow.Read more →

Reference #152: Peopleware

Much of the work in our roles is sociological and involves communication, and so part of the interview for these roles should be too.Read more →

Reference #153: Peopleware

The average person leaves a company after about 2 years.Read more →

Reference #154: Peopleware

Employee turnover costs about 20% of all people-hour expenses. This is due to the cost involved in hiring a new employee, as well as the several months it takes for the employee to be fully productive.Read more →

Reference #155: Peopleware

High-turnover companies have a culture of short-term thinking.Read more →

Reference #156: Peopleware

Some companies use promotions as a way to retain key talent in a high-turnover environment.Read more →

Reference #157: Peopleware

High turnover leads to a vicious cycle. Less money is spent on training since employees do not stay long. Since the company invests little in its employees, those employees have little hesitation to move to another company. And so the cycle grows.Read more →

Reference #158: Peopleware

Over the long-term, what matters for business success is not treating human costs as an expanse, but rather investing in human capital.Read more →

Reference #159: Peopleware

Company goals may be arbitrary, but people can still align around them — consider the goals a sports team in a match. Members of a team are invested in the outcome of the social unit they belong to.Read more →

Reference #160: Peopleware

The purpose of a team is not goal attainment, but goal alignment.Read more →

Reference #161: Peopleware

Cliques are not inherently bad. A clique is a jelled team (though not all jelled teams are called cliques).Read more →

Reference #162: Peopleware

As a manager, you can't make the teams jell. You don't build teams; you grow them.Read more →

Reference #164: Peopleware

Building a low quality product leads to lower pride in product. This inhibits team jelling; team members lack a joint sense of accomplishment.Read more →

Reference #165: Peopleware

Managers are at best part-time members of a team. At higher levels in an organisation, jelled teams cease to exist; they are formed by people at the front lines, not by managers.Read more →

Reference #166: Peopleware

A commitment to working overtime generally cannot be applied equally to all the team members. For example, a working parent faces different constraints to a recent university graduate without children.Read more →

Reference #167: Peopleware

Peer coaching is ubiquitous in healthy teams. This is especially important in modern workplaces where the manager no longer has all the technical skills required by the team and hence cannot coach them in those skills.Read more →

Reference #168: Peopleware

Fragmented team can't jell. Team members split across multiple working groups have too many interactions to keep track of, and to few of the tight interactions required for team to jell.Read more →

Reference #168: Peopleware

Good managers provide frequent, easy opportunities for their team to succeed together.Read more →

Reference #169: Peopleware

A good manager exercises only natural authority.Read more →

Reference #170: Peopleware

People have a need for closure. As a manager, you should ensure there are opportunities for it.Read more →

Reference #171: Peopleware

Leaning too heavily on process leads to an absence of responsibility.Read more →

Reference #172: Peopleware

Valuable projects, by definition, have risk. Low risk yet valuable projects were likely to have been all completed in the past.Read more →

Reference #173: Peopleware

Total time spent in meetings increases with organisation size for two reasons.Read more →

Reference #174: Peopleware

There are two types of meetings: working meetings and ceremonies.Read more →

Reference #175: Peopleware

DeMarco and Lister offer a few approaches to improving a meeting-heavy culture:Read more →

Reference #176: Peopleware

The ultimate management sin is wasting peoples' time. Some behaviours that lead to wasting others time are the following:Read more →

Reference #177: Peopleware

While an open organisation in which people are happy to have their work seen is admirable, this organisation can become dysfunctional.Read more →

Reference #178: Peopleware

"Blindly loyal followers" are not allies to change. They are likely to hop onto the next bandwagon as quickly as they joined your cause.Read more →

Reference #179: Peopleware

Chaos is an inevitable step in the process of organisational change. Virginia Satir provides the following model of change:Read more →

Reference #180: Peopleware

Change can only succeed if we allow for some failure.Read more →

Reference #181: Peopleware

Organisational learning is limited by turnover.Read more →

Reference #182: Peopleware

Organisational learning manifests as one of two changes in that organisation:Read more →

Reference #183: Peopleware

Organisational learning happens in the middle of an organisation, at the level of middle management.Read more →

Reference #184: Peopleware

Since most organisational learning occurs at the level of middle management, downsizing efforts that target middle management do so at the expense of organisational learning.Read more →

Reference #185: Peopleware

Organisational learning is enabled by the peering of middle managers.Read more →

Reference #186: Peopleware

Politics, in the Aristotelian sense of one of the five noble sciences that together make up philosophy, is the science of creating and managing large groups ethically.Read more →

Reference #187: Peopleware

In response to the trend of employees leaving a company to become an entrepreneur or consultant, companies are adopting the practice of allowing some employees to define their own role.Read more →