The more you focus on control, the more likely you're working on a project that's striving to deliver something of relatively minor value.

If you find yourself concentrating on the technology rather than the sociology, you're like the vaudeville character who loses his keys on a dark street and looks for them on the adjacent street because, as he explains, "The light is better there."

The manager's function is not to make people work, but to make it possible for people to work.

Computer system analysis is like child-rearing; you can do grievous damage, but you cannot ensure success.

Organizational busy work tends to expand to fill the working day.

Some of the most flowery praise you hear on the subject of teams is only hypocrisy. Managers learn to talk a good game about teams even when they're secretly threatened by the whole concept.

There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.