The Deadline

A novel in which a manager is kidnapped and set to run software projects in a fictional country, a device that lets DeMarco test management ideas as plot rather than as advice. The story works through staffing, modelling a project before committing to it, the effect of pressure on delivery dates, and what happens when a schedule is set by wishful thinking. Each chapter closes with entries from the narrator's journal, so the lessons are collected in one place as they arrive. Readable in a couple of evenings, and often the way people first meet the ideas of project modelling and risk reserves.