The "Anti-Productivity" Argument

by Michael C. Mah

"If you want higher quality, build less stuff." That, in essence, is what Cutter Business Technology Council Fellow Tom DeMarco once said about a daring strategy for quality improvement: reduce quantity. Tom went on, "Whatever it is that your organization makes, make less of it. Make less, and choose much more carefully what you make." (For more on this, read Chapter 16 of DeMarco's Slack, Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency .)