The Deadline: A novel about project management, is an interesting book. Not just because of how it’s written, but for what it teaches you. In this case for the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the book you learn lots of concepts about project management.
During the Silikon Valejit Chapter, you can take Mr. Thompkins’s place, he is not just kidnapped, but forced to work in Morovia, the Soviet Country. But at a certain point, he is convinced by Lahksa, the spy. She tells him that he can do a controlled experiment, in which he can use the software engineers to his disposal, to create the world’s first Project Management Laboratory.
Time passes and Thompkins receives a Journal from Lahksa in which he is going to take notes from now on. The first note in the Journal says the Four Essentials of Good Management, which are Get the right people, match them to the right jobs, keep them motivated and help their teams to jell and to stay jelled.
He also discovers that there is a lot of negative reinforcement taking place in Morovia and he decides to send a letter to the NNL. Of course he also learns that people can’t embrace change unless they feel safe, and change is essential to all success in a project. Avoiding risks is fatal since it causes you to miss out on the associated benefit as well.
Finally, Thompkins meets the NNL, and to his surprise, the NNL is called Bill and he “bought” Morovia, of course, he becomes a tyrant but that is something he is not really prepared for.
Bill has an interesting idea, and that is to copy software, and then give it away!.
Of course, Thompkins is not ready to understand that and Bill tells him that the future revenue comes from the Newer versions, not from the sale of the software itself.
The most interesting thing from these chapters is, of course, the introduction to something like the “free trials”, something that is really useful nowadays.
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