Customer Reviews

Growing Software: Proven Strategies for Managing Software Engineers

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

This uniquely pragmatic guide to managing software development in the startup or growing firm, is an "in-the-trenches book" detailing the necessary,useful and extraneous practices, tools, and documentation which govern the successful management of software projects. The author is both a graduate of Caltech and Berkeley and the possessor of 20 years of hard earned experience in the management of technology and software development projects. He provides templates and spreadsheets for the documentation his methodology requires. He is an advocate of moderate but carefully scoped tools and documentation, often preferring (on the basis of experience) simple spreadsheets and Gantt charts over more sophisticated project management tools. This book offers a careful balance between the best communication, management and coaching methods, for members of the software team, interaction with marketing and CXO executives and the software and paper tools which contribute to the success of a software development effort. Caveats and advice such as, "When the Sales Team Overpromises", and "Where the Waterfall model is better than Agile methods" speak to the author's experience with the real world issues of technology development in the growing firm. This is "the book" you need for successful management of software projects in the startup or moderately sized firm.

--Ira Laefsky

Overall a Good book - especially chapter 1-4. Well written with examples and conceptualizing real scenarios and what to do's in a new organization where one ends up joining as a S/W Dev Manager.

Some areas of the book like estimation, scheduling - looks light and I lost interest - could be 2 reasons, I do not like estimation, since it is not a true science OR may be the author was not good enough in explaining and exploring this facet of S/W Development.

However as I mentioned liked the first 4-5 chapters

As you all probably know results matter. If you are a development manager in a small, growing company, you will be judged by the work and results of your development team. Your team must deliver quality software on time on budget and that software will have to please your customers.

At first this book seems to be like other management books but one thing makes it really different. Growing Software is written for managers working in small companies. In fact it is about managing software engineers in a small firm. Luis Testa shows many interesting aspects of working in small environments as oppossed to corporate ones. In small companies development managers have more influence on processes and workflows and as a result in a product definition. In small companies approaches must be systematic, simple and relatively straighforward. This book is about how to start and avoid common pitfals.

I work as a software architect managing software development team in a small company. For me this book is a nice, well written guide. It is an advice offer about how to succeed when faced with diverse challenges. It is about managing techniques, professional ethics and building relationships with other company's sections like Marketing or Sales. It also helps to understand and care about relations with other managers, CEO and team members.

As I said earlier there are many good books about managing engineering teams and processes of these teams but this book's greatest value is focusing on how things work in small companies that want to succeed. I definetely recommend this book especially if you manage an engineering team in a small company.

This is a great book! It is written for the new development manager, perhaps temporarily inserted into a management position because there is no one else to do it. With the new position come new responsibilities, new pressures, a different work flow . . . The situation can be overwhelming. This book provides a proven approach to dealing with these issues in an organized and practical way, and provides many real-world examples of both success and failure.

The book is sectioned into these topics:

Development team
Product and technology
Outside of engineering
Making work flow, process, projects and qualtiy
Planning for the future

The author deals with company size in discussing planning for successful projects, from the one person company to the company with over 100 employees.

There is a strong emphasis on developing people skills, learning the culture of the company, and discovering the process of decision making in the company. Concrete examples of the requirements for planning projects, including technical tools that are helpful, are scattered throughout the book. One of the features of the book I particularly appreciated was the "real life accounts" scattered through the book, statements from software engineers discussing situations they'd faced in companies, and the pros and cons of how they were handled.

Here is a listing of the chapters, this gives an idea of the breadth of information contained in this book.

Getting started
Managing a development team
Creating an effective development team
Growing a software team
Defining the product
Driving releases
Evaluating your tools and methods
Assessing your technology
Working with your company
Working with the CEO and the executive team
Listening to your customers
Project Estimating
Starting a project
Project execution and tracking
Designing a software development process
Process improvement
Understanding quality assurance
Setting the direction
Product roadmap and strategy

This book would be a great resource for anyone involved in administration in a company, from a newly recruited team leader to the CEO. There are so many practical issues clearly stated with suggested resolutions there isn't room to detail them all.

There is an 11 page index. There are detailed subheadings for each chapter, which makes finding a particular section or topic very easy. Each chapter has references for those who desire to do additional research into a topic.

The author has a new web site to support the book, http://www.gspractices.com/. Short discussions regarding resolution of management difficulties are posted on the web site.

Highly recommended. One of the best books I've read on the topic.

Based on the subtitle of the book, I anticipated more information about the unique challenges of managing software engineers, but the focuses a lot more on managing software *projects*.

For example: managing egos, mediating conflicts, creating a productive work environment, incentivizing (beyond just money), and measuring results.

But the book focuses more on what steps to take if you were to take the helm at a small company: who to talk to, what plans to make, and documentation to gather, etc.

Another thing that irks me are the little vignettes scattered throughout the book. These are supposed to be real-life experiences related to that particular chapter's content. But there are no names attached (people or companies) and the stories are so vague that they don't feel real at all. I like writing where people refer to people and places that we've all heard of. (See Joel Spolsky's story about meeting Bill Gates when he worked on the Excel team.)

Otherwise, it's a fine book, just not what I had expected. (And I think the title is a bit misleading.)

The book covers the process for managing software in gory detail. If you are in the industry for 5 years, you know (or) have worked in most of them. It is an overkill from that aspect. If you are looking for titles on managing people and the dynamics of the minds you have to manage, this book will sorely disappoint you

Collections catering to software engineers will find this a fine practical guide for managing technology at a small company, showing how to run a software company short- and long-term. Hands-on advice teaches how to build and lead a team, sell products, and work with customers at all levels of importance.

If you have worked at an engineering company before this book isnt going to tell you anything that you don't already know.

New managers - go and get 'first, break all the rules' - it will teach you something you dont already know, and is backed up by hard research.