Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results

By David J. Anderson

Book Overview

This text explains how agile software development methods produce better business results. It aims to help managers combat the biggest business complaints about software (for example, late, doesn't deliver as promised, over-budget and so forth). This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131424602
• ISBN13: 9780131424609
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.9" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Metrics for agile software development

The text gives a good explantion of agile practices and theory. It looks closely at three agile development methods : Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Feature Driven Development (FDD), with an emphasis on FDD. One of Anderson's key points is although agile software development is an empirical process (eg. dependent upon experimentation and observation), it is not necessarily chaotic. Therefore, it can be planned and...

Changing the Point of View

I found this book highly informative and relevant.As an agile advocate, this additional perspective is what I have been looking for. The explanations of the Theory of Constraints has proven valuable to me in my interactions with customers already.

A Management Book that Developers Should Read Too

This book is essential reading for IT managers, but senior developers should read it too. While some things in this book will make engineers say "I know that, but just didn't know how to say it", other things are real eye openers. Engineers will find some of the management theory to be dry reading, but it is relevant.If you ask engineers who have used both traditional (i.e. waterfall) methods and agile methods they will...

Superlative and profound

Anderson takes agile development, which is a loose-leaf collection of unintegrated practices, and transforms it into a serious discipline with a firm foundation. He accomplishes this by borrowing concepts from manufacturing (like theory of constraints) and applying them to software development. Such a book could only be written by someone thoroughly familiar with both software development and manufacturing; fortunately the...

hard work, but worth it.

This is the hardest - and possibly best - Agile software book I have read so far. It's hard because it digs deeper into the cause and effect at play within agile environments and because it deals with the "bigger" financial aspects of lean. It's a well written, comprensive text.