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

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.

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.