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Managing Differences: The Critical 21st-Century Management Skill, 2nd Edition (Executive Summary)

The critical 20th-century management skill -- making things and people fit into systems that execute efficiently -- will inevitably be transcended by a different 21st-century critical management skill: creating the conditions in which people of widely varying backgrounds, behaviors, and inclinations can maximize their particular contributions to economic value. This is certainly happening in most firms in developed economies, yet most managers (especially IT managers) have not yet come to grips with it.
September 1, 2015 | Authored By: Robert Austin, Tom DeMarco, Lynne Ellyn, Mark Seiden, Lou Mazzucchelli, Ronald Blitstein, Tim Lister

Managing Differences: The Critical 21st-Century Management Skill, 2nd Edition

The critical 20th-century management skill — making things and people fit into systems that execute efficiently — will inevitably be transcended by a different 21st-century critical management skill: creating the conditions in which people of widely varying backgrounds, behaviors, and inclinations can maximize their particular contributions to economic value. This is certainly happening in most firms in developed economies, yet most managers (especially IT managers) have not yet come to grips with it. With this Executive Report, we move away from our usual format and revisit an "ahead of the curve" Council Opinion by the Cutter Business Technology Council, which highlights what has now become a major corporate movement.
September 1, 2015 | Authored By: Robert Austin, Lynne Ellyn, Tom DeMarco, Mark Seiden, Lou Mazzucchelli, Ronald Blitstein, Tim Lister

A Perennial Problem: Software Estimation

In this month's CBR, we take on a classic issue: software estimation. It's a classic because it looks, on the surface, like something we ought to have figured out by now. There's a "way it's supposed to work" that looks plausible.
August 1, 2002 | Authored By: Robert Austin

Beware Slack Elimination

As with most flawed ideas, there is an element of truth in the idea that "leanness" and absence of slack have benefits to companies over the long term. The hierarchical organizational forms that characterize most modern companies were developed in an era when we did not have our current communication capabilities. A large part of the function of traditional hierarchies was to manage information flow. Some of the changes that we have made to organizations have been inevitable adjustments to reflect the fact that we no longer need to devote as much effort to managing information flow because of the nature of new technologies. 
November 12, 2015 | Authored By: Robert Austin
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