AntiPatterns: Identification, Refactoring, and Management catalogs 48 bad management practices and environments common to software development, IT, and other organizations. The authors cover antipatterns of management, along with environmental/cultural antipatterns and personality antipatterns/phenotypes. Through the classification of these harmful practices, you will be able to correctly identify problems in your own work environment, and take action to correct them.

The authors apply their extensive work and consultative experience, as well as the experience of the many professionals that they have known. This approach leads to a realistic treatment of antipattern concepts. Written for a wide audience of practitioners, the authors avoid a scholarly style, instead infusing the text with entertaining “gadgets,” including rambunctious and ribald sidebars, cartoons, stories, and jokes, as well as names for their antipatterns that are at once visual, iconic, humorous, and memorable.

Following introductory material describing some management theory and how humans behave individually and in groups, the text provides the catalog of management and environmental antipatterns. The book then offers general advice on overcoming bad practices through successful interaction with clients, customers, peers, supervisors, and subordinates.