“Here’s a management book which is just plain fun to read.The Deadline is an innovative and entertaining story with insightful business principles for team-based project management at the end of each chapter.” — John Sculley
From prolific and influential consultant and author Tom DeMarco comes a project management novel that vividly illustrates the principles--and the outright absurdities-- that affect the productivity of a software development team. With his trademark wit set free in the novel format, DeMarco centers the plot around the development of six software products. Mr. Tompkins, a manager downsized from a giant telecommunications company, divides the huge staff of developers at his disposal into eighteen teams -- three for each of the products. The teams are of different sizes and use different methods, and they compete against each other . . . and against an impossible deadline. With these teams, and with the help of numerous consultants who come to his aid, Mr. Tompkins tests the project management principles he has gathered over a lifetime. Key chapters end with journal entries that form the core of the eye-opening approaches to management illustrated in this entertaining novel.
“Tom
DeMarco once again
gleefully peels away the
onion layers of
management issues with a
humanity and insight
that translate as easily
into corporate general
management as they do
into the management of
of software projects and
teams. In The
Deadline, he gives
us a chuckle of a book,
rich with both the
absurdities of our daily
work lives and with
metric devices that can
help us manage and
perform better.
— Bruce Taylor
(Publisher, Imaging
World Magazine)
