Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka,
Tim Lister, Steve McMenamin,
James Robertson, Suzanne Robertson
Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka,
Tim
Lister, Steve McMenamin,
James Robertson, Suzanne Robertson
Dorset House 2008
ISBN 9780932633675 (paper)
Buy it from Amazon.com (commission paid)
Buy it from Amazon.co.uk (commission paid)
The members of the Atlantic Systems Guild have published numerous books over the years, but this is the first time they have written one all together. It is hard to write a multi-author book, and most attempts at it don't really work. Adrenaline Junkies does work, and it speaks with a single voice. Whether that was achieved by one of the group's editing like crazy, through the group's spending a weekend together, or simply through having worked together for years, is not stated. However it was done, the result is an attractive, funny and easy-to-read small book of essays. In fact, it is a compelling read; you sit and read one essay, muse on it, and promptly read another. Laughter is indeed the best medicine.
This is a book of patterns, that in the way of such things, you recognise but have never heard spoken. The individual essays are quirkily titled, and each illustrated by a photograph, drawing or graphic. These work well, despite their diversity of graphic style and relationship to their themes. The essays, too, vary widely in length: the authors are bold enough to say little where little is needed: another rare gift in today's prolix world of blogs and citizen-publishers.
The only book that is remotely comparable to Adrenaline Junkies is Michael Jackson's Software Requirements and Specifications: a Lexicon of Practice, Principles, and Prejudices. That, obviously, had a single famous and highly experienced author, who had himself created at least 3 software development methods over the years. Jackson's book - also a delight - is similarly a collection of essays, but it is arranged as a Lexicon (A to Z, minus a few letters here and there). Being a set of essays by one author, it is delightfully or maddeningly one-sided, according to taste; and it reveals Jackson's skill as an essayist - a rare thing in the world of engineering. Sensing, perhaps, that the alphabetic organisation feels quite weak, Jackson suggests no fewer than 14 short tours - paths through the book - on various overlapping themes. He later wrote up one of these themes - Problem Frames. Perhaps another 13 unwritten books lurk just under the surface of the Lexicon.
Adrenaline Junkies, like Jackson's Lexicon, provides much insight, with flashes of barbed humour. Its authors, too, have created various software methods and templates over the years. It too is in no particular order, save that the authors have striven for "the most enjoyable reading experience". There aren't any suggested tours, because none stand out: you have to find your own groupings or favourites. The "interlude" of Project-Speak is simply a delight, but the deeper pleasure comes from recognising the wicked portraits of some especially clueless roles on projects. Who hasn't met the project manager in Management by Mood Ring"who always talks in optimistic, eternal-present tones with nary a mention of progress towards targets or deadlines? And what about the Film Critics who perpetually lob tomatoes into a project, with no feeling of responsibility to help make it work any better? Or Children of Lake Wobegon, where everybody's performance rating is above average?! Alistair Cockburn, quoted inside the front cover, is right on the mark when he says "I suspect you will start using these phrases in your work - I already have." But I suspect that the patterns in this book, as in Jackson's, in fact DO fit together: that Mood Ring management + Film Critic staff + Lake Wobegon mis-mentoring = Timid Organisation Planning For Failure, or something. In other words, while each essay tells a small truth, there may be larger syndromes at work here - a few more books waiting to hatch.
It's a brave book, too, that dares to speak about negative patterns that consultants see in organisations. "The beatings will continue until morale improves" is the self-confessedly "sour note" in Happy Clappy Meetings: be happy, or else. Publishing that particular pattern is a declaration that no corner of management doublespeak is safe; this book speaks truth to power (as the Quakers long ago said they would).
Other patterns that you will recognise with a certain grim fascination include Short Pencil: "I hate working for a company that makes you turn in a short pencil before you can get a long one." I actually recall the flip side of this awful pattern: giving out handfuls of biros to downtrodden people who in all other respects looked like workers in a first-world country; and this was England.
So strong is the impact of the negative, that it is the essays describing positive patterns which stand out as different. My first impression was that there were very few of these, so it is with surprise that I see on looking back through the book that there are plenty of them. Poker Night praises doing something other than work (anything, not just poker) together as a team. Food++ tells the same story, really, though food certainly carries a special message of togetherness. I Don't Know explicitly praises honesty (and Telling The Truth Slowly, the anti-pattern, makes the reader wince: lying is no good, but telling the truth won't make you popular).
With so many patterns (there are 86 altogether), it's inevitable that not everyone will agree with everything, and this is certainly not a book afraid of controversy. Is the Phillips Head screw really so much better than the slot-head screw? Perhaps it's a matter of opinion: the Phillips head makes power driving a practical option; but it's really easy to grind the screw-head smooth with a power driver; and, looking at the bigger picture, the shockingly badly crafted furniture that passes for fitted kitchens, bedrooms and studies nowadays owes a lot to the replacement of craftsman-made dovetail joints with cheap angle brackets and Phillips screws. Perhaps the innovations favoured some stakeholders but not others: more profit for the big retailers and their shareholders; lower prices for consumers, perhaps; deskilling and unemployment for the old craftsmen.
The book as a whole is confident and convincing. Few other groups in the world today could have assembled such a wealth of expertise in project management, and none, perhaps, could have written about it so engagingly. If you're in a position of power, you should take it to heart.
© Ian Alexander 2008
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