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Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior (Dorset House eBooks) by [Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka, Tim Lister, Steve McMenamin, James Robertson, Suzanne Robertson]

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Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior (Dorset House eBooks) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Tom DeMarco (Author), Peter Hruschka (Author), Tim Lister (Author), Format: Kindle Edition

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Part of: Dorset House eBooks (19 books)

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Adrenaline 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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1st
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Addison-Wesley Professional
Publication date

July 15, 2013
Language

English
File size

32339 KB
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

If your organization builds systems of any kind, chances are that some of the methods and approaches that it uses came originally from the Atlantic Systems Guild. Collectively, the authors have published nearly twenty previous books, including Peopleware, Mastering the Requirements Process, The Deadline, Essential Systems Analysis, Waltzing With Bears, and Process for System Architecture and Requirements Engineering. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

"Another masterpiece from the folks who brought you Peopleware. Anyone who has survived a software project or two will surely recognize many of these patterns and will be able to learn from most of them. Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies is a real joy." --Joel Spolsky, author of Joel on Software

"Who else but these particular authors could mine 150 years of software team experience to capture memorable names for oft-encountered situations? I suspect you will start using these phrases in your work--I already have." --Alistair Cockburn, author of Agile Software Development

"utterly delightful collection of essays about 86 'project patterns' . . . These 'patterns' are grimly familiar to anyone who has worked in project-related organizations; and unfortunately, they can be found in small companies as well as large ones. Fortunately, some of the patterns ('Rattle Yer Dags' and 'Nanny,' for example) are good ones, and should be encouraged. Sadly, though, far too many of them ('Dead Fish,' 'Project-Speak') are not only depressingly familiar, but astonishingly destructive to productivity, quality, and the morale of the project team. . . . I really love this book, not the least because each pattern can be read and understood in a moment or two, since they take only 2-3 pages to explain. . . . If Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies gets the attention it deserves, Scott Adams may have to return to Corporate America and get an honest job as a project manager." --Ed Yourdon, author of Death March --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00DY3KQHM
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (July 15, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 15, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 32339 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 331 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #753,549 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #100 in IT Project Management
- #148 in Software Project Management
- #3,406 in Software Design, Testing & Engineering (Books)

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James Robertson
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James Robertson is a problem solver, consultant, teacher, photographer, author and practitioner of systems and software solutions. He is co-author of seven books and the Volere approach to requirements engineering. He is a principal of The Atlantic Systems Guild, a think tank known for its innovative approach to systems engineering.
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Peter Hruschka
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Peter Hruschka, based in Aachen, Germany, specializes in requirements and design of embedded real-time systems. He is the co-developer of the REQ42-template for agile requirements engineers and the ARC42 template for system architecture documentation. In one of his earlier lives, he pioneered modeling tools for structured and object-oriented methods. He has coauthored half-a-dozen books on methods and tools.
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Tim Lister
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Tom DeMarco
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Tom DeMarco is the author of sixteen published books, including five novels, a collection of short stories, and the rest books about systems technology and the sociology of the workplace.
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Steve McMenamin
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Steve McMenamin was a Principal of The Atlantic Systems Guild from its founding in 1983 until his death in 2019. He had a parallel career as a manager at Edison International, Crossgain, and later at Hawaii Electric. Over his lifetime he managed more than a thousand people, and was known for taking a continuing and compulsive interest in the advancement of their careers.
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Suzanne Robertson
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Suzanne Robertson is a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild. Suzanne is co-author of Mastering the Requirements Process (Addison-Wesley 2012), several other books and many articles about the socio-technical aspects of requirements and business analysis. Current work focuses on the integration of stakeholders, goals and scope and the use of iterative requirements techniques. The product of this research is Volere, a complete requirements process and template for discovering, understanding and communicating requirements and for specifying requirements. She was the founding editor of the Requirements column in IEEE Software magazine.
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Steve McMenamin
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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

50 global ratings

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4 star		26%
3 star		10%
2 star		4%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Geraldo XEXEO

Some are good patterns, others are anti-patterns

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 13, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a catalog of professional behaviors patterns found in the software industry.
Some are good patterns, others are anti-patterns, however which is which is not clear in the beginning of the chapter.
Each chapter is a good reading, and a is a lesson on project management, however the book, as a whole, lacks consistency or organization.
It kind of looks like the linear printing of a very good web site/hypertext.

Helpful

Lars Indresaeter

Develop your intuition and smile a bit along the way

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 27, 2013

Verified Purchase

In this book we learn about familiar patterns in software projects and projects in general. If you have worked for a while you will enjoy this book to further develop your intuition for good and bad patterns in a project and I can guarantee you it will even bring upon a smile or two

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Wonderful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 22, 2017

Verified Purchase

If you consider yourself as a software developer or project manager, you should definitely read this book!

You can find really good solutions for the most fundamental problems in software development and project management.

One person found this helpful

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MJL

Interesting book from the Atlantic Guild folks. Not as ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2014

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Interesting book from the Atlantic Guild folks. Not as in-depth as Peopleware, but then again it's a sequence of small snapshots of project behavior (good and bad) rather than making an overall argument as did Peopleware.

One person found this helpful

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Carlos Ferreira

Great book for real project managers.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 21, 2013

Verified Purchase

A wonderful book which briefly outlines common patterns experienced in real life projects. There is a lot of information presented here with very little fluff. I will be retreading this over again many times.

One person found this helpful

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Peter Czirjak

Precious and relevant

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 6, 2018

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Amazing and witty.
Masterpiece for those working in Requirements Engineering and IT delivery.

One person found this helpful

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Enterrador

Fun!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 19, 2012

Verified Purchase

This was a very very fun book to read!!

Sometimes when I have a discussion @ work, I start laughing a little bit because I get the feeling that a couple of pattern zombies are around me.

Reflects the culture of some corporations in US.

Thanks!

2 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

A few nuggets doesn't make a great book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 7, 2014

Verified Purchase

It's ok. Just ok. Not the same calibre as other writing by Demarco and Lister. There are a few interesting nuggets. Some stories are so convoluted I'm not sure if they are patterns or anti-patterns.

2 people found this helpful

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Another Satisfied Customer

An Interesting But Expensive Coffee Table Book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 15, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book comprises a series of pragmatic vignettes on project management that are interesting reminders on what to do and what not to do when managing the delivery of project deliverables. As a practicing programme and project manager I found the book an interesting and easy read. I believe that the book would make a good introductory tome for anyone new to project management - primarily as a guide to the things one should be thinking about when setting-up, running and closing projects.

PW

Entertaining to read, but sometimes shallow and unconvincing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 9, 2010

Verified Purchase

This book presents 86 so-called patterns of behaviour in organisations that the authors have identified during their work as software consultants.

The patterns themselves are not explicitly structured (e.g., through a common set of headings), instead they are rather presented as generalised anecdotes about things that can happen on a software project. The patterns are not related to another in specific ways, instead each is mainly presented in isolation. The authors don't make claims that their observations were typical. The length of a pattern description can range from 7 lines of text (pattern 23) to a few pages. I found the book entertaining to read.

What I found positive about this book:
1. The book provides some evidence for the messy reality of many software projects and organisations. This is an aspect that is often neglected in the literature.
2. The authors don't praise their own work and their writing style is unassuming and not patronising (unlike that of some other consultants).
3. The material covers a large spectrum of situations that can occur.
4. The anecdotes are amusing and generally sound realistic.

What I found negative about this book:
1. The so-called patterns are just unstructured narrative, while I expected a more structured and systematic approach. To me much of the text sounds rather vague.
2. There is usually no indication how often a 'pattern' was observed or the context of observations.
3. The authors only present their own view of events, which may be biased, as this group of expensive, external consultants will naturally have a very special point of view. They often present one single explanation as 'the right one' and fail to reflect on their own bias.
4. They provide little theoretical background to make sense of their observations. I found their analysis rather shallow, lacking for example references to the vast literature on organisational behaviour and psychology.
5. There is little practical advice on how to deal with the situations described by the patterns.

All in all I think that this is a well-written, interesting and above all necessary book. It's good that it was written at all, and it's a valuable attempt to provide some insight into the reality of software projects. However, I found many of the interpretations, explanations and suggestions offered in this book rather shallow and unconvincing.

2 people found this helpful

Oliver S.

Insightful

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on December 11, 2010

Verified Purchase

Though not all of the described patterns and anti-patterns will apply to your situation or that of your organization, this book will certainly give you one insight, even if it's the only one: you're not alone. But more likely you will find yourself, your colleagues and bosses, former colleagues and bosses in the (anti-)patterns.

Easily digestible small chapters with one (anti-)pattern described per chapter invite to pick it up and read through a chapter even when there's only little time. Sometimes I got hooked by it and had to read several chapters at once. Definitely a good pick.

Side-note: you will also recognize the style from Deadline and Peopleware. So if you liked those, another reason to buy this one.

One person found this helpful

Darren

a must

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 23, 2014

Verified Purchase

A must read for software development managers and project managers. Explains the anti patterns and patterns to avoid or encourage.

Yousof Alsatom

Very good

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on March 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

Very good book, it has a lot of information and experience. I recommend everyone to read it. The nice think it is written as stories

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Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior (Dorset House eBooks) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

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Suzanne Robertson

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