Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project BehaviorAdrenaline junkies, dead fish, project sluts, true believers, Lewis and Clark, template zombies . . . Most developers, testers, and managers on IT projects are pretty good at recognizing patterns of behavior and gut-level hunches, as in, "I sense that this project is headed for disaster." But it has always been more difficult to transform these patterns and hunches into a usable form, something a team can debate, refine, and use. Until now. In Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, the six principal consultants of The Atlantic Systems Guild present the patterns of behavior they most often observe at the dozens of IT firms they transform each year, around the world. The result is a quick-read guide to identifying nearly ninety typical scenarios, drawing on a combined one-hundred-and-fifty years of project management experience. Project by project, you'll improve the accuracy of your hunches and your ability to act on them. The patterns are presented in an easy-reference format, with names designed to ease communication with your teammates. In just a few words, you can describe what's happening on your project. Citing the patterns of behavior can help you quickly move those above and below you to the next step on your project. You'll find classic patterns such as these: * News Improvement * Management By Mood Ring * Piling On * Rattle Yer Dags * Natural Authority * Food++ * Fridge Door * and more than eighty more! Not every pattern will be evident in your organization, and not every pattern is necessarily good or bad. However, you'll find many patterns that will apply to your current and future assignments, even in the most ambiguous circumstances. When you assess your situation and follow your next hunch, you'll have the collective wisdom of six world-class consultants at your side. |
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action Adrenaline Junkies Agile Software Development artifacts assigned become blue zone boss candidate Cider House Rules communication complete consider Cool Hand Luke corrective Cousin Vinny culture dashboards data cleansing decision deliver deliverables Derek Jacoby devel document early testing effective Erica everything example False Quality Gates Feature Soup feel film critics goals going guerilla teams happens hire idea improvement interfaces interviewers iterations Jerry Lake Wobegon effect leader look means meeting offshore ONTIME opment organization pattern Peopleware performance person problem project manager project team referred pain release criteria requirements responsibility schedule scope scuba dive ship date skills Smithers Snorkeling Snorkeling and Scuba solution someone sometimes sub-teams success task team leads team members team's Template Zombies things Tom DeMarco Truth Slowly typically