Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0932633617 ISBN 13: 9780932633613

Casa editrice: Dorset House, 2001

To most companies, efficiency means profits and growth. But what if your efficient company -- the one with the reduced headcount and the stretch goals -- is actually slowing down and losing money? What if your employees are burning out doing the work of two or more people? What if your super-efficient company is suddenly falling behind?
If your real organizational goal is to become fast (responsive and agile), Tom DeMarco proposes that what you need is not more efficiency but more slack.

What is slack ? Slack is the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. It could be something as simple as adding an assistant to a department, or letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions. Slack could also appear in the way a company treats employees: Instead of loading them up with overwork, a company designed with slack allows its people room to breathe, increase effectiveness, and reinvent themselves.

In thirty-three chapters filled with creative learning tools and charts, you and your company can learn to make sense of the Efficiency/Flexibility quandary run directly toward risk instead of away from it strengthen the creative role of middle management make change and growth work together for even greater profits.

Originally published by Broadway Books and available from Dorset House for the first time, this revolutionary handbook will debunk commonly held assumptions about real-world management. You and your company will find a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness -- and a healthier bottom line.

Review:

Another entry in the small but growing management library that suggests purposely slowing down and smelling the roses could actually boost productivity in today's 24/7 world, Tom DeMarco's Slack stands out because it is aimed at "the infernal busyness of the modern workplace." DeMarco writes, "Organizations sometimes become obsessed with efficiency and make themselves so busy that responsiveness and net effectiveness suffer." By intentionally creating downtime, or "slack," management will find a much-needed opportunity to build a "capacity to change" into an otherwise strained enterprise that will help companies respond more successfully to constantly evolving conditions. Focusing specifically on knowledge workers and the environment in which they toil, DeMarco addresses the corporate stress that results from going full-tilt, and offers remedies he thinks will foster growth instead of stagnation. Slack, he contends, is just the thing to nurture the out-of-box thinking required in the 21st century, and within these pages, he makes a strong case for it. --Howard Rothman

From the Inside Flap:

If your company's goal is to become fast, responsive, and agile, more efficiency is not the answer--you need more slack.
Why is it that today's superefficient organizations are ailing? Tom DeMarco, a leading management consultant to both Fortune 500 and up-and-coming companies, reveals a counterintuitive principle that explains why efficiency efforts can slow a company down. That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves. It means embracing risk, eliminating fear, and knowing when to go slow. Slack allows for change, fosters creativity, promotes quality, and, above all, produces growth.
With an approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook debunks commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and gives you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness.