Customer Reviews

Making Process Improvement Work: A Concise Action Guide for Software Managers and Practitioners

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of those books that you'd think would be common sense knowledge, but isnt. I've been working in process improvement for 22 years and this is the first book I've found that collects all of the strategies I've found successful in one place!

The book starts by showing how easy it is to get "lost in the trees" (and kill a bunch of them in the process) if you try to "do CMM" like most people do the first time around. The authors do a great job of showing how to keep the main thing (delivering better quality software) the main thing and avoid creating mountains of useless documentation.

I would recommend that anyone looking at achieving higher levels of maturity in CMM, SPICE, or ISO 9000 read this and take a reality check on their plans.

The development of quality software has proven to be one of the most difficult tasks ever to arise in the brains of humans. With so many ways to fail and so few paths to success, there is not a single software shop without a great deal of room for improvement. However, determining that a shop needs to improve is about as difficult as hitting the ground if you slip on ice. The hard part is identifying where the changes should be made and making sure that real change is done rather than some simple shuffling of resources or pointless changing of names.
That point is where this book becomes valuable. It is a concise document, describing in broad, but not excruciatingly fine detail how to improve processes for managing the construction of software. The names of the chapters summarize the basics of any well-constructed process: developing a plan, implementing the plan and checking progress. It also gives you sound advice as to how to track the changes in the process, so important to convince those doing the changing that what you are doing is in their interest.
I recommend that all managers of software development projects examine this book. It will also show you how to stay on track, as it is all too easy to find excuses to significantly deviate from any plan.

The numerous examples, cases, graphs, and templates give the reader the tools to start the improvements in his or her own organization. Furthermore, the book is fun and easy to read. To me and my colleagues, it'll be very useful!

I found this book exceedingly practical and helpful, particularly in planning an improvement program. I was able to use its advice on planning with no further research or guidance and was very pleased with the results. I expect to refer to these ideas repeatedly and to recommend this book to others who do process improvement. The real-world examples and step-by-step approach are very effective at making the reader feel capable of tackling an improvement program and succeeding at it. Finally, but actually uppermost in my mind, I fully subscribe to the philosophy of the authors that we should undertake improvements because they will help our business.

This is a book that provides real help with the "critical" issues in a process improvement program. The 4-step Risk management process is very "doable" and the discussion of the adoption and resistance issues is exactly what people on the process improvement journey need to know. The approach is extremely practical. I especially applaud the "don't force it" attitude with advice like "If there are no unmet needs, goals or problems to solve, then you should mutually agree that nothing will be done."

At IBM, I was for many years, a key member of the OS/390 project office, working directly with development managers to assure their deliverables met lifecycle development standards of all kinds. Since leaving IBM, I have worked as a consultant in similar roles. Guidance and tips in this book have helped me land a very good assignment as a software process improvement mentor in a large insurance company. The book is unique; much of what is written can be found in a variety of sources but not in one book.

Wayne Yaddow, Consultant

"I like the approach described in the book and only regret that we did not have this insight two years ago when we first started our software process improvement journey. We could have avoided many of the pitfalls."

Tom Tougas, Harmon Industries, MO

"This book is a blessing in disguise! It is well written, has examples and templates that can be easily used < a great start point for many. It covers all the highlights from management support to culture. I also really like how the book works the problem set and identification of goals into positive, desired state nomenclature. By doing so it can actually propel folks into action. The language of the book is written so that even be-ginners in the SPI world can get immediate understanding of how to start/continue."

Xerox, Rochester NY

This book is simply fantastic. Neil Potter and Mary Sakry show you, simply and clearly, how to tie your process improvement activities to the things that matter in your business. Rather than an onerous "why are we improving for improvement sake", this book shows how to find what hurts, make it better and raise maturity regardless of what improvement model you may use. The book can be read in about an hour, and there are many appendicies that provide practical and easy to understand examples. Reading the book doesn't make process improvement easy (change is never easy), but it puts you down the right path. The best chance of institutionalizing real process improvement is through solving the real problems of the company and its employees and customers.

I especially recommend that company executives read this book, since they often set the tone for a process improvement effort.

This book is a must read for anyone heading up a process improvement practice.

"As a manager of a software development organization, I found the book interesting, meaningful and useful. In my work at Bradley Company, I've used the goal-problem approach that the book advocates and have first hand knowledge that it works well. We've made remarkable progress with it. I specifically liked the following about the book:

* It is short and concise, which is refreshing. Nothing is more irritating than reading through a bunch of fluff. When that happens, I go into skim reading mode and possibly miss important points or the book isn't finished.

* The examples are very good, especially rewording of problems into goals and the compelling versus non-compelling goal examples. The how-to's are very good. I'm using some today. After reading this book, I plan to start using the risk management approach, especially the prioritization technique.

* Insights into different companies given in the examples are great for learning. Very few people in the industry have the background to credibly write a book containing this valuable information.

* The book answered my questions such as how do you vary the approach based on the size of an organization and what happens when you want to achieve a CMM certification and there are residual practices that don't match a business problem."

Terry Light, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Bradley Company