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Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results
 
 
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Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results [Kindle Edition]

David J. Anderson (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews) |
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Print List Price: $69.99
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A breakthrough approach to managing agile software development, Agile methods might just be the alternative to outsourcing. However, agile development must scale in scope and discipline to be acceptable in the boardrooms of the Fortune 1000. In Agile Management for Software Engineering, David J. Anderson shows managers how to apply management science to gain the full business benefits of agility through application of the focused approach taught by Eli Goldratt in his Theory of Constraints.

Whether you're using XP, Scrum, FDD, or another agile approach, you'll learn how to develop management discipline for all phases of the engineering process, implement realistic financial and production metrics, and focus on building software that delivers maximum customer value and outstanding business results.Coverage includes:

  • Making the business case for agile methods: practical tools and disciplines
  • How to choose an agile method for your next project
  • Breakthrough application of Critical Chain Project Management and constraint-driven control of the flow of value
  • Defines the four new roles for the agile manager in software projects—and competitive IT organizations

Whether you're a development manager, project manager, team leader, or senior IT executive, this book will help you achieve all four of your most urgent challenges: lower cost, faster delivery, improved quality, and focused alignment with the business.

From the Back Cover

"This book does a good job of describing the methods employed at Sprintpcs.com ... over 250 people practicing Feature Driven Development and reporting their progress to me at the monthly operations review."
--Scott B. Relf, Chief Marketing Officer, Sprint PCS

"A tremendous contribution to the literature in the field. This should be required reading for all development teams going forward."
--John F. Yuzdepski, VP & GM, Openwave Systems

A breakthrough approach to managing agile software development, Agile methods might just be the alternative to outsourcing. However, agile development must scale in scope and discipline to be acceptable in the boardrooms of the Fortune 1000. In Agile Management for Software Engineering, David J. Anderson shows managers how to apply management science to gain the full business benefits of agility through application of the focused approach taught by Eli Goldratt in his Theory of Constraints.

Whether you're using XP, Scrum, FDD, or another agile approach, you'll learn how to develop management discipline for all phases of the engineering process, implement realistic financial and production metrics, and focus on building software that delivers maximum customer value and outstanding business results.Coverage includes:

  • Making the business case for agile methods: practical tools and disciplines
  • How to choose an agile method for your next project
  • Breakthrough application of Critical Chain Project Management and constraint-driven control of the flow of value
  • Defines the four new roles for the agile manager in software projects-- and competitive IT organizations

Whether you're a development manager, project manager, team leader, or senior IT executive, this book will help you achieve all four of your most urgent challenges: lower cost, faster delivery, improved quality, and focused alignment with the business.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • File Size: 2965 KB
  • Print Length: 336 pages
  • Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits
  • Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (September 17, 2003)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B003CW67YG
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #176,024 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
IF... September 26, 2004
Format:Paperback
Abraham Lincoln once asked something like, "If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" The answer is four. "Just because you call a tail a leg doesn't make it so." Just because you want to call some development practice "Agile" doesn't make it so. In this book, David Anderson makes a case for calling Theory of Constraints the underlying definition of Agile software development practices. The principle tie is that a key measure in the Theory of Constraints is called Throughput; the amount of value delivered to the customer. Agile methods pride themselves as delivering value to the customer quickly. Based on the Theory of Constraints definition, the Feature Driven Development (FDD) method, Anderson's personal expertise, turns out to be the most Agile of all.

In making the case for the Theory of Constraints based approach, Anderson has given us a lot of formulas and metrics for looking at software projects. This is the most thorough treatment of the subject I have seen yet. I wasn't fully satisfied with the metrics as I felt the book didn't deal with the biggest problem in metrics, the problem of characterizing the measure. To do good metrics, you have to be very clear on what you are measuring, the characterization problem. Without that, all the formulas, graphs, and trends are pretty much useless. Most of the book dealt with the problem by saying, "If you could measure `X', then..." I got really tired of all the Ifs in the book.

In fact, I am not sure I should like this book or not. I found myself half of the time saying to myself, "Hmm, that is a interesting idea," and the other half saying, "I don't think so." Perhaps it was all the Ifs, perhaps it was the repetition. I am glad to say at the end of the book Anderson does appear to have the intelligence to note that one size does not fit all and does a nice job of suggesting where the best choices in software development approaches might be.

So, who should read this book? Well, if you like Donald Reinertsen's and Eliyahu Goldratt's work and live in the software world, this book is for you. If you have to teach Agile seminars to software professionals (like me), then this should be on your reading list as well. If you are general software project manager or developer who is looking to improve the way you do software development, then I would probably pass on this book. Not that the ideas are all wrong but you probably will get lost along the way. If...
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
The Science of Agile October 2, 2003
Format:Paperback
Agile methods are all the rage these days, and with good reason: they work. Unfortunately, current practice is largely a hodgepodge of rules of thumb rather than a consistent theory derivable from basic, verifiable assumptions.

That's where David Anderson's book comes into play. David explores the foundations from which most of the Agile concepts can be derived. While most of the concepts are borrowed from manufacturing, David does an excellent job of explaining how they relate to software. The book is very well written, the graphics are excellent, and the concepts are ones that anyone involved with software will need to master if they want to stay competitive.

Excellent work, david.

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16 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The accounting-based framework for assessing the value contributions of a team seem like an effective way of measuring Agile products and whether or not they're good for the company.

Unfortunately, the book was full of distracting grammar and even *spelling* errors. It also had a serious tendency to use a lot of acronyms / variables for concepts, but didn't bother to even quickly re-expand the name when they hadn't been used for a couple of chapters and jumped back up again. Plodding from chapter to chapter, it builds up formulae with just enough description to bury you in the details of the relationships between the variables, without actually conveying examples of what the variables represent in real life projects.

For being as formula-oriented as this book was, I would've expected to see a detailed example of a project, assessment of it as it went along, and the calculations of the value being delivered by the project. There were a few hypothetical examples, but nothing that actually sounded like a real evaluation of a project as it progressed.

Finally, they might as well have cut out SCRUM and XP. I would've been much happier if this book had just been an application of TOC (Theory of Constraints) to FDD (Feature-Driven Development) and if it had concentrated more on real examples of the two in practice, rather than trying to extract some theory and try to convey how one might apply it to other methodologies.

I just couldn't say that, having read all of it, I could correctly measure what they state, compute the numbers the the way they suggest, and then have any confidence in any decisions I made based on those numbers.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Agile Management for Software Engineering
I don't mind buying books from Amazon, but the only thing about Amazon is they charge you shipping charges, why can't they just ship all the books at one time instead if they are... Read more
Published on October 23, 2009 by Thomasine L. Magdaleno
Very Good Text for the Subject
This text book treats the subject of agile software management well. The examples and explanations are quite comprehensive.
Published on October 14, 2008 by P. Dave
Simple and easy to apply
My professor required this book for my software project planning course. Being from a science background, I've never been very interested in business-related subject matter. Read more
Published on June 21, 2008 by John McCune
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... Read more
Published on August 22, 2004 by William McMichael
The Missing Link
Ignore the 4 stars, that's just because I feel the subject can and will get a better book, however this book has paved the way. Read more
Published on May 14, 2004 by Damian
Solid message but lacking in examples
Agile Management for Software Engineering is targeted for managers and executives working in the software industry. Read more
Published on February 13, 2004 by Lasse Koskela
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. Read more

Published on January 30, 2004 by Miroslav Novak
The more I dig the more WOW it pops up
I cannot stress enough how wonderful this book is. The more I dig the more WOW it pops up. The concepts might be unfamiliar and hard, but well written makes it easy to read. Read more
Published on December 11, 2003 by Peter Ho
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... Read more
Published on December 3, 2003
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. Read more
Published on October 21, 2003 by slashcart
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David J. Anderson
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