I am a big fan of Tom Demarco’s work. Demarco published about 13 books on software and management. Two of the books on my list to read are: Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies and Deadline. The two I read and enjoyed so far were Slack and Peopleware. Demarco’s no-nonsense writing style is brilliant. One of my favorite chapters in his book Peopleware is how he describes the opposite techniques of what make teams jell. Those techniques or behaviors is what he calls Teamicide.
Demarco explains that the way he and his team came up with this list was due to a trick called inversion (described in Edward deBono’s Lateral Thinking). He continues, “When you’re stuck trying to solve a problem, deBono suggests that rather than looking for ways to achieve your goal, look for ways to achieve the exact opposite of your goal”. So instead of looking for ways to make team formation possible, Demarco and his team began to think of ways to make it impossible. Enter Teamicide.
If your goal is to build high performing teams, it also helps to understand what prevents teams from getting there.
I think if your goal is to build high performance teams (here and here), it also helps to understand what prevents teams from getting there. Demarco’s short list of teamicide techniques is as follows:
- Defensive Management (Side note: Jim Tamm gave the final keynote at Agile 2015 with the title: Want better Collaboration? Don’t be so defensive.)
- Bureaucracy
- Physical Separation
- Fragmentation of People’s time
- Quality reduction of the product
- Phony deadlines
- Clique control
Demarco says that, “some of these techniques will look awfully familiar. They are things that companies do all the time.”
He goes on to explain each of these techniques one by one. If you haven’t read Peopleware, get it and read it today!
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