Tom DeMarco Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

First law of Bad Management: If something isn't working, do more of it.

Tom DeMarco
People under pressure don't work better; they just work faster.

Tom DeMarco
Get the right people. Then no matter what all else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That's what management is all about.

Tom DeMarco
The pathology of setting a deadline to the earliest articulable date essentially guarantees that the schedule will be missed.

Tom DeMarco
A day lost at the beginning of project hurts just as much as a day lost at the end.

Tom DeMarco
While the machines have changed enormously, the business of software development has been rather static.

Tom DeMarco
It's not what you don't know that kills you but what you know that isn't so.

Tom DeMarco
The business of software building isn't really high-tech at all. It's most of all a business of talking to each other and writing things down. Those who were making major contributions to the field were more likely to be its best communicators than its best technicians.

Tom DeMarco
Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

Tom DeMarco
The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.

Tom DeMarco
Quality is free, but only to those who are willing to pay heavily for it.

Tom DeMarco
Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they're secretly threatened by the whole concept.

Tom DeMarco
If nothing is declared unchangeable, then the organization will resist all change.

Tom DeMarco
If you find yourself concentrating on the technology rather than the sociology, you're like the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, "The light is better there."

Tom DeMarco
Organizational busy work tends to expand to fill the working day.

Tom DeMarco