The Software Project Manager's Handbook: Principles that Work at Work - Softcover

Phillips, Dwayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0818683007 ISBN 13: 9780818683008

Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr, 1998

Synopsis

Software project managers and their team members work individually towards a common goal. This book guides both, emphasizing basic principles that work at work. Software at work should be pleasant and productive, not just one or the other.

This book emphasizes software project management at work. The author's unique approach concentrates on the concept that success on software projects has more to do with how people think individually and in groups than with programming. He summarizes past successful projects and why others failed. Visibility and communication are more important than SQL and C. The book discusses the technical and people aspects of software and how they relate to one another.

The first part of the text discusses four themes: (1) people, process, product, (2) visibility, (3) configuration management, and (4) IEEE Standards. These themes stress thinking, organization, using what others have built, and people. The second part describes the software management principles of process, planning, and risk management. Part three discusses software engineering principles, the technical aspects of software projects. The fourth part examines software practices giving practical meaning to the individual topics covered in the preceding chapters. The final part of this book continues these practical aspects by illustrating a sample project through seven distinctive documents.

About this title

About the Author

Dwayne Phillips has worked as a software and systems engineer with the US government since 1980. He has a PhD from Louisiana State University in Electrical and Computer Engineering. His interests include computer vision, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and programming languages.
Phillips is the author of Image Processing in C, published by R&D Publications in 1994, and has written several dozen articles for computer magazines. When not writing, he spends time with his family and volunteers at his church.

The author's unique approach stresses that success on software projects has more to do with how people think individually and in groups than with programming. Visibility and communication are more important than SQL and C. Personal and group techniques outweigh the latest tools.

The first part of the text discusses elements of effective software management. It introduces the four themes: (1) balancing people, process, product, (2) making ideas visible, (3) applying configuration management properly, and (4) using Standards. The author summarizes past successful projects and why others failed. The second part describes the requirements, planning, and risk management stages of the development cycle. These contain the hard part of software development and how the four principles help people who love to code work through essential but unpopular tasks. The third part of the book looks at the middle and late stages of development — design, test and integration, and maintenance. It discusses dealing with customers who want to be designers, avoiding endless test-fix cycles, and working maintenance so no one feels like a second-class citizen. The last part of the book is a cookbook that discusses three projects in light of the basic principles. These projects walk step-by-step through a waterfall, an evolutionary, and a spiral project.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0818683007
• ISBN 13: 9780818683008
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 408