teams that are not succe ssful. Just as the right decision at the right time
can make all the difference in a successful project, sometimes people can
be truly misguide d w hen they build softw are. They choose the wrong
practice or path: for example, good documentation can turn bad when it's
onerous and not used. But projects can fall off the other side of the
spectrum, too, w here people on the team don't plan at all, and everyone
goes in a different direction. And that's what the cautionary stories in this
book demonstrate: teams that started out w ith the w rong goal, included
the w rong people, applied the wrong practices, or simply hit an
insurmountable obstacle.
We could never have w ritten a book that does that by ourselves. We're
very limited in w hat we know . Everybody is. And that's w hy we cast as
w ide a ne t as possible, talking to people w hose opinions w e respect. The
many people w ho contributed to this book represent the real spectrum of
proje cts that people across the w hole industry take on.
And w hile many of the opinions and ideas that you'll read about differ from
our ow n—in some cases, they're completely opposite—w e learned a lot
from each and every one of these contributors. We think that you w ill, too.
This book includes stories and interview s w ith veteran team leaders from
all around the software industry. We recruited contributors from as many
different industries and areas of interest as possible: from defense to
social organizing, from academic research to video game development,
from aerospace and defense to search engines, and from project
manage rs to "boots-on-the-ground" programmers and system admins.
There are people w ho w e met over the course of our educations and w ork
lives. There are contributors from a w ide range of companies, including
people w ho w orked (and, in some cases, still work) at NASA, Google, IBM,
and Microsoft. We w ere especially surprised and pleased w hen w e got
contributions from pe ople like Grady Booch, Barry Boehm, Steve McConnell,
and Karl W iegers, whose w riting and teaching w ere central to our ow n
understanding of how software is built. We felt honored to w ork w ith them
and other people in this book w ho you may not know as w ell, but w ho are
also doing amazing and innovative things for softw are development. We're
especially grateful for contributions from Tim O'Reilly (whose publishing
company printed this and our other books), Scott Berkun (w ho w e've
know n for years and w ho not only contributed a great essay, but also
interview ed Steve McConnell), and Tony Visconti (a legendary music
producer w ho took the time to talk to us about his ow n process).
Frankly, w e're still amazed that w e w ere able to get such a w ide-ranging,
know ledgeable, distinguished, and talented group of contributors. But
even more surprisingly, not a single contributor asked to be paid. Instead
of dividing the royalties from this book among the contributors, w e have
the privilege of donating them to PlayPumps International, an innovative
charity that digs w ells to deliver clean drinking w ater to schools and
villages in rural sub-Saharan Africa. PlayPumps is more than a charity;
they've had to do their ow n share of engineering and innovation. You'll
learn more about them and their mission (and something about teams, as
w ell!) in our interview w ith Trevor Field, the founder of PlayPumps.
Every one of these contributors has something interesting, important, and,
most significantly, useful to say about teams: how they w ork, how to build
them, and how they break dow n. Each of them is a veteran team leader in
his or her ow n right, w ith successes and failures under his or he r belt. In
some cases, w e w ere surprised and even shocked by the stories they had
to tell. And every single one is entertaining. The sum of all of these parts