Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy

"Every senior executive needs to read this book."

Watts Humphrey is the well-known author of methods and models widely used by organizations, teams, and individuals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software development. In Winning with Software, he shows corporate executives and senior managers why software is both a business problem and a business opportunity.

"This book is extremely well written and targets the right audience. I plan to buy a copy for each of my executives."

Humphrey, drawing on his own extensive executive and management experience, first demonstrates the critical importance of software to nearly every business, large and small. He then outlines seven steps needed to gain control of a software operation and transform it into a professional, businesslike engineering function. Failure to recognize the importance of software, and to take charge of its development process, runs the risk of damaging the entire business. By contrast, Humphrey relates the substantial benefits real organizations have obtained from such awareness and control, and he concludes with an analysis of the impressive financial returns the recommended transformations typically yield.

"This is a great book that will play a valuable role. It has excellent anecdotes that illustrate the points being made, as well as good examples depicting the problems faced by teams and managers. I look forward to sharing it with my colleagues."

Known as &;the father of software quality,&; Watts S. Humphrey is the author of numerous influential books on the software-development process and software process improvement. Humphrey is a fellow of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded the Software Process Program and provided the vision and early leadership for the original Capability Maturity Model (CMM). He also is the creator of the Personal Software Process (PSP) and Team Software Process (TSP). Recently, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology&;the highest honor given by the president of the United States to America's leading innovators.