From Peopleware to Human Sigma

“Peopleware Productive Projects and Teams” (Doret House, 1987) by Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister introduced topics: team gelling, group chemistry, corporate entropy, flow time, “teamicide” and workspace theory (for optimization). It is a popular book about project management of software development engineering and suggested that “sociology” matters more than technology or even money. The main message is to focus on people, not processes or products. How many organizations take the composition and freedom of the team seriously? Many large organizations still tend to treat technical staff as fungible, and small organizations often end up with critical product knowledge in the skull of a single individual!

Peopleware was a bit of a shock for many in the IT profession, for they had been so focused on tools and technology and process that lost sight of the human element of software development. However people are still a key factor in software development.

After “Peopleware”, John H. Fleming, Curt Coffman and James K. Harter (2005) introduced “Human Sigma”, which focuses on reducing variability and improving performance. They recognized employee-customer encounter is the factory floor of sales and services. Moreover, people base their decisions on a complicated mixture of emotion and reason, indicating that emotions may play a larger role than analysis. Using Six Sigma approach to measuring and managing the quality of the employee-customer interaction needs to take customers’ emotions into account.
The following dimensions assess the emotional nature of customers’ commitment.
“Confidence”
Does this company always deliver on its promises?
Are its people competent?
“Integrity”
Does this company treat me the way I deserve to be treated?
If something goes awry, can I count on the company to fix it fast?
“Pride”
It is a sense of positive identification with the company.
“Passion”
Is the company irreplaceable in my life and a perfect fit for me?

Every interaction between an employee and a customer represents an opportunity to build that customer’s emotional connection or to diminish it.

The relationship among employee attitudes, customer requirements, and financial performance are:
“Employee attitudes affect customer attitudes, and customer attitudes affect financial performance.”


The photo is taken in the first class of MTR today. If you are the staff of MTR, how do you treat this customer? (That’s employee-customer encounter.)

Reference:
Fraser S., Boehm B., Boroks F. Jr. DeMarco T., Lister T., Rising L. & Yourdon E. (2007) “Retrospective on Peopleware” 29th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE’07 Companion) IEEE.

Fleming J.H., Coffman C. & Harter J.K. (2005) “Manage your human sigma” Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005, pp107-115.