Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

by DeMarco Tom

Your goal should be to eliminate most ceremonial meetings and spend the time in one-on-one conversation, to limit attendance at working meetings and apply the “What ends this meeting?” test to each one. In place of ceremonies, encourage Open-Space networking to give people a chance to have unstructured interaction. Most important, curtail your own need for the confirmation that is provided by ceremonial meetings.

When you try to institute change, the first thing you hit is Chaos. You’ve been there before. It’s when you are convinced that you are worse off than before with this new tool, new procedure, or new technique.

An interesting characteristic of human emotion is that the more painful the Chaos, the greater the perceived value of the New Status Quo—if you can get there.

With the more naïve two-stage model, we don’t expect Chaos. When it occurs, we mistake it for the New Status Quo. And since the New Status Quo seems so chaotic, we think, “Whoops, looks like we blew it; let’s change back.” The change-back message is bound to be heard loud and clear in the middle of any ambitious change.

change only has a chance of succeeding if failure—at least a little bit of failure—is also okay.

Learning is limited by an organization’s ability to keep its people. When turnover is high, learning is unlikely to stick or can’t take place at all.

The most likely learning center for any sizable organization is the white space that lies between and among middle managers. If this white space becomes a vital channel of communication, if middle managers can act together as the redesigners of the organization, sharing a common stake in the result, then the benefits of learning are likely to be realized. If, on the other hand, the white space is empty of communication and common purpose, learning comes to a standstill. Organizations in which middle managers are isolated, embattled, and fearful are nonstarters in this respect.

An organization that succeeds in building a satisfying community tends to keep its people. When the sense of community is strong enough, no one wants to leave. The investment made in human capital is thus retained, and upper management finds itself willing to invest more. When the company invests more in its people, the people perform better and feel better about themselves and about their company. This makes them still less likely to move on.

A single person acting alone is not likely to effect any meaningful change. But there’s no need to act alone. When something is terribly out of kilter (like too much noise in the workplace), it takes very little to raise people’s consciousness of it. Then it’s no longer just you. It’s everyone.