Software Management

By Donald J. Reifer

Book Overview

This Seventh Edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to know to be successful on the job. The text provides pointers and approaches to deal with the issues, challenges, and experiences that shape their thoughts and performance. To accomplish its goals, the volume explores recent advances in dissimilar fields such as management theory, acquisition management, globalization, knowledge management, licensing, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, subcontract management, and technology transfer.

Software Management provides software managers at all levels of the organization with the information they need to know to develop their software engineering management strategies for now and the future. The book provides insight into management tools and techniques that work in practice. It also provides sufficient instructional materials to serve as a text for a course in software management.

This new edition achieves a balance between theory and practical experience. Reifer systematically addresses the skills, knowledge, and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively.

This book contains original articles by leaders in the software management field written specifically for this tutorial, as well as a collection of applicable reprints. About forty percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for the tutorial.

Contents:
* Introduction
* Life Cycle Models
* Process Improvement
* Project Management
* Planning Fundamentals
* Software Estimating
* Organizing for Success
* Staffing Essentials
* Direction Advice
* Visibility and Control
* Software Risk Management
* Metrics and Measurement
* Acquisition Management
* Emerging Management Topics

"The challenges faced by software project managers are the gap between what the customers can envision and the reality on the ground and how to deal with the risks associated with this gap in delivering a product that meets requirements on time and schedule at the target costs. This tutorial hits the mark by providing project managers, practitioners, and educators with source materials on how project managers can effectively deal with this risk."
-Dr. Kenneth E. Nidiffer, Systems & Software Consortium, Inc.

"The volume has evolved into a solid set of foundation works for anyone trying to practice software management in a world that is increasingly dependent on software release quality, timeliness, and productivity."
-Walker Royce, Vice President, IBM Software Services-Rational

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471775622
• ISBN13: 9780471775621
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society PR
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 0.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 8.5" x 11.0"

Customer Reviews

Somewhat dated, but mostly valid collection of papers

This collection of IEEE and ACM papers written by an all star case of industry experts is showing its age in many areas. For example Barry Boehm's "A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement", while valid for high-risk projects that push the technical envelope, is too risk-adverse for rapid or incremental development projects that are in increasing use. However, some papers that you may be tempted to reject out-of-hand, such as TRW's Ada Process Model for Incremental Development of Large Software Systems is actually worth reading for organizations that have committed to the Rational Unified Process.Overall, the range of papers covers every aspect of software engineering project management. The applicability of the papers collected in this book to contemporary practices is uneven. Some practices are either thoroughly documented and accepted best practices (the entire section of papers on project management), or are transitioning to newer models (the material on the CMM). On the other hand, some papers in this collection are gems and make this book worthwhile despite its age (planning and estimation papers).One final note - the layout and design of this book could be greatly improved. Despite the age and some of the shortcomings I noted this is still a worthwhile resource for software engineering professionals who are working in a CMM Level 2 or above organization.