Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development [Paperback]

Larry L. Constantine (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0201719606 | ISBN-13: 978-0201719604 | Publication Date: June 15, 2001 | Edition: 1

In Beyond Chaos, legendary software engineer Larry Constantine brings together 28 outstanding essays on software project management, straight from the must-read Management Forum column in Software Development Magazine. Critically important reading for every software manager and engineer, this book covers an extraordinarily wide range of issues -- with equally impressive depth. You'll find Karl Wiegers on the basics of project management, and Capers Jones on software productivity measurement; Steve McConnell on managing outsourced projects and Michael Vizard on the need for stronger software professional standards. From Lucy Lockwood on aligning development with e-Business, to Ed Yourdon on surviving software "death marches," it's here: dealing with difficult people, sustaining teamwork, coping with project failure, managing from the bottom up, and much more. There are also four essays by Larry Constantine himself, covering requirements, development culture, modeling, and other key issues.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Chaos. Not the inchoate state of the early universe, not the ill-behaved subject of a specialized branch of mathematics, not the mid-revolutionary fragmentation of a society in transition, but coding chaos--the everyday reality of projects that develop software applications for computers and the World Wide Web.

Countless managers struggle for control and stability, for accountability and predictability amidst this chaos. From the project leaders, who provide the day-to-day oversight and guidance all the way up to the CIOs, whose charge is strategic direction and corporate-wide coordination, they struggle to understand and manage technology and processes of enormous complexity made all the more complex and unmanageable by the relentless and accelerating pace of technological change.

Herding squirrels. Corralling cats. Taming the mongrel hordes. Whatever the metaphor, the challenges of managing software development are legend. The stories are alarmingly similar for projects of every scope and size, whether staffed by the arrayed forces of thousands of programmers and testers or tackled by a small team of freelancers. The budget may be blown by a hundred percent or more and deadline upon deadline may be passed like so many exits on a freeway. Rarely do software development projects meet budget constraints, technical objectives, and delivery schedules--if indeed recognizable constraints, objectives, and schedules exist. Applications that are far more complex than a high-rise office building have sometimes been launched with little more planning than a sketch on the back of a napkin.

Some managers simply give up and accept this uncontrolled chaos as the state of affairs, an unchangeable reality and the unavoidable price of dealing with a highly paid and poorly understood profession. They accept the reality of seeking discipline among the undisciplined, of perpetually pushing the envelope of the possible, or of seeking certainty where specifications are little more than executive fantasies and deadlines are the arbitrary impositions of uninformed marketing managers.

Some managers seek refuge in mind-numbing manuals of procedure and in the step-by-step details of elaborately defined processes. They rationalize the investment in expensive systems that promise predictability through the imposition of regulation and regimentation.

Some managers, defining defeat as success, instead celebrate unmanageable chaos as the crucible of creation, the necessary and desired context in which to unleash the powers of the digital genie that will transform life on earth.

Beyond chaos, however, beyond surrender or celebration, is another view of software development--the view that software development projects and software developers are indeed manageable, that chaos is not an inevitable condition or concomitant. In this view, salvation dwells in the details, success lies in subtle insights, and control is achieved through thoughtful attention and planning.

The expert edge is the difference. Compiled in this book are the insights, inspiration, practical pointers, and provocative thinking of an elite assemblage of working managers and practicing consultants--the recognized experts who contributed monthly to the Management Forum. The Forum, a regular feature in the respected industry publication Software Development, occupied the prestigious inside back page of the magazine and proved to be one its most popular features.

Written for busy working managers, the Forum featured pragmatic, provocative essays by the leading thinkers and doers in software and Web development, software engineering, and technical management, including such industry luminaries as Ed Yourdon, Capers Jones, Meilir Page-Jones, Steve McConnell, and Jim Highsmith. The column set high standards for the clarity and quality of both the writing and the thinking it expressed. Every guest columnist was charged with the twin tasks of providing something that a working manager could put to use tomorrow and of offering something to think about for the next week.

Not surprisingly in light of the diversity of contributors, the discussions reprinted in this volume represent diverse views grounded in a variety of backgrounds and experiences. What they have in common, however, are common and positive threads--that software development and software developers are manageable, and that better management in this economically and technologically critical field is sorely needed.

The essays span such diverse topics as dealing with difficult people, managing from the bottom-up, coping with project failure, sustaining teamwork, and building software to throw away. Managers will find among the chapters the distilled essence of experience and the hard-won wisdom of those who have fought in the trenches of technical management, and won.

Highly focused analyses and specific suggestions are combined with provocative arguments and thoughtful perspectives. The essays have been edited and organized by broad subject matter and arranged to form a logical progression, finishing with what I hope will stand as a challenge and a look to the future of management and of software development.

Larry Constantine Rowley, Massachusetts March 2001

0201719606P04062001

From the Back Cover

The popularity of the Management Forum in Software Development Magazine is not surprising. Because the majority of software development projects fail to come in on time, on budget, or on specification, software development managers are constantly seeking out management approaches and techniques that will help them achieve success. Many software development projects deteriorate into a state of chaos.

In Beyond Chaos, the keenest contributions to the Management Forum have been incorporated into a single volume to reveal best practices in managing software projects and organizations. The forty-five essays contained in this book are written by many of the leading names in software development, software engineering, and technical management. Each piece has been selected and edited to provide highly focused ideas and suggestions that can be translated into immediate practice. Pragmatic and provocative, they address key management concerns involving people, planning and productivity, coping under pressure, quality, development processes, and leadership and teamwork.

Highlights of the book include:

• Larry Constantine, "Dealing with Difficult People: Changing the Changeable"
• Karl Wiegers, "First Things First: A Project Manager's Primer"
• Capers Jones, "Productivity by the Numbers: What Can Speed Up or Slow Down Software Development"
• Ed Yourdon, "Death March: Surviving a Hopeless Project"
• Dave Thomas, "Web-Time Development: High-Speed Software Engineering"
• Meilir Page-Jones, "Seduced by Reuse: Realizing Reusable Components"
• Jim Highsmith, "Order for Free: An Organic Model for Adaptation"
• Steve McConnell, "Managing Outsourced Projects: Project Management Inside-Out"

These and many more insightful and advisory essays together represent the cutting edge in software development management and the collective wisdom of the field's most knowledgeable practitioners. Both entertaining and enlightening, Beyond Chaos will enrich your skills and enhance your deeper understanding of the process of bringing software from idea to reality.

0201719606B06262001

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (June 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201719606
• ISBN-13: 978-0201719604
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,019,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New solutions to development problems that are not new, July 19, 2001

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development (Paperback)

There are several principles of software development that are well-known but not well applied. Pressing people to work long hours is one that has been shown over and over again to be counterproductive. Over the long term, regular overtime causes a decrease in productivity, leading workers to some rather innovative ways to compensate. For me and others, the management report meetings were an opportunity to catch up on our sleep. However, despite this overwhelming evidence, many organizations still cajole their workers to keep excruciating hours. It will probably never be known with certainty, but it seems a good bet that the long hours put in by dot-com workers contributed to many of the failures.
When I first opened this book, I thought that it was just another of the many that I have seen recently explaining why so many software projects fail. While theses about things like the evils of mandatory overtime, the need for maintaining mutual respect among all levels, and providing appreciated compensation are all correct and important, those avenues have been thoroughly explored. So much so that I now find such descriptions generally repetitive and dull. Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised when I read this book. While the collected papers do deal with such issues, the approach was refreshing. I thoroughly enjoyed the reference to the owner who was a joy to work for, his employees thought he was a great manager and he compensated them well. Right up to the day when he went bankrupt.
The problem in the development world is not that it is rife with politics and conflict, that is a natural component of any environment containing humans. The real problem is learning how to accept their existence and channel it into avenues of increased production, which is the point of the solutions described in this collection of papers by several authors. My favorite was how to "control" office gossip. Of course you can't, but what you can control is how you react to it and what you say. Like the old game of telephone, nothing kills gossip quicker than someone who refuses to play. Setting down simple rules about saying what is and is not an acceptable point for discussion can do a great deal to reduce tensions.
Other topics include the "demise" of the cow(boy and girl) coder, how to argue with your boss, how to accept arguments from your subordinates, how to productively argue with your hierarchical equals, how to accept and learn from failure; how to set deadlines, and how to be tough enough to succeed without turning into an example of the ugly manager. Some conflict in the work place is good, as there will never be a one correct way to build software. At times, even a bit of yelling can be refreshing to all concerned, provided it does not cross that fine line to the personal. Some of the most productive sessions I have attended started out with a great deal of yelling that immediately eliminated the tension so people could compromise. Nothing is more pointless than a meeting where there is an underlying tension that is never released and people leave even madder and more frustrated than when they started.
The points made in this collection of papers will not easily turn your enterprise around, although each is a tweak of the rudder pointing you to the right course. There is no "magic spell" that you can read and apply to make everything work out. However, there are so many things that you can do to incrementally improve how you create software and several can be found in this book. The tips range from the cradle to the grave of a software project and they will work if you apply them with honesty and resolve.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Must Have For Team Leaders, April 7, 2003

By 

Philip R. Heath "Gadgets, Music, & Books" (DFW) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development (Paperback)

I bought this book when I was promoted to team leader 6 months ago. This is a great collection of wisdom for the new manager, especially Chapter 7 - First Things First: A Project Manager's Primer. As this chapter says from the start, most people are promoted without much if any training. This is a good starting point. The close of the book - Chapter 45 - was also one of the highlights. This is Constantine's advice to new leaders and those who wish to become leaders. He makes a nice distinction between pure management, to which he claims to have nothing new to add, and leading software development.

The book is broken down into 6 areas (It's About People, Project Management, Under Pressue, Quality Required, Processes and Practices, and Leadership and Teamwork) each containing about 8 chapters. You may think that is a lot of ground to cover in a book, and it is. The chapters in Quality Required didn't seem to be as relavent to their area as the others did. Quality means a lot of different things to a lot of different people so this is difficult no doubt. I found the firt two and last two areas of the book to be the most helpful.

This may seem contradictory to the above paragraph, but I felt the book was too long. Compared to other books such as "The Manager Pool" and "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering", this book is hard to finish in short bursts. Five pages was about tops for a chapter in the other books while it was typically the minimum for this book. That doesn't make Beyond Chaos a bad book. As I've said it has great information. Just don't expect to breeze through the information.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Done, July 2, 2002

By 

Brian Maguire (New Hope, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development (Paperback)

I have read many of these types of books on simular topics and most of the time I wonder why I continue to keep getting them. I guess I keep hoping that the next book will be different.

This book is different. It is very well written, edited, and organized. The chapters cover key areas and provide just enough information to take back to the "real world".

Most of the project management and software management books force you to read 40 page chapters with 10-12 different bullets lists of 10 important points. This organization forces you to bounce around chapters or become overwelmed trying to take back 100 bulleted lists of important concepts. Beyond Chaos does not do this.

Beyond Chaos has short chapters that have been beaten down to only include good brief case studies, key concepts and summaries. The contibutors speak from experience and have mastered the concepts not weeks or months ago, but years and decades ago.

My only constructive critism is that a few of the chapters may not provide enough information or go indepth enough. They act more as excellent primers on the topic and could probably be books of their own.

If you are looking for a book you will learn from and read cover to cover. Get this one.

Excellent job Larry.

Brian Maguire
VP Product Development
Vantage