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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A beginner's book bound to gather dust after the first read, November 17, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Object-Oriented Project Management with UML (Hardcover)
There is no doubt that this book is very good for somebody, who is going to start working in a software engineering environment. However, there are a couple of points which indicate that one should look around before deciding upon a purchase. (Even with the current price of 24 $) Here are my points of concern: - The chapter on object technology is really a half-hearted introduction and not very useful for getting started in this field. - The book relies heavily on just a few references. Those references are recommended repeatedly. One of them is the doubtful 'Journey of a Software Professional' (Hint: Check out the mixed reviews.) - The author can't resist recommending the 80-20 rule throughout the different project phases. This is hardly inventive and adds to a certain degree of repetitiveness. - The case study is more entertaining than informative. - The third part of the book (consisting of only one chapter) simply gives the impression that the book was rushed out for print. I am not quite sure why this book merits a hardcover and on some occasions throughout the book, I could not help thinking that the layouters tried to increase the number of pages by adding a few commentary boxes ('Tips') here and there and enlarging diagrams to 'poster-size'. Despite all those complaints, I have to say that the book helped me to gain an overview of the management process of a software product. But, after my first reading, it now gathers dust on the bookshelf ...
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Timely Book for Managers and Sophisticated Customers Alike, December 5, 1999
This review is from: Object-Oriented Project Management with UML (Hardcover)
Murray Cantor's Object-Oriented Project Management with UML is of value to both the young manager looking for guidance and the seasoned manager looking to ground one's practices. The book is an engaging read that blends best practices with personal opinions. The author is careful to distinguish his personal opinions from the rest of the text and is conscientious to appropriately cite the work of others. Some 70 plus references are listed in the bibliography. In fact, what comes across is Mr. Cantor would prefer software managers to have a repertoire of books on one's shelf. I myself keep returning to Walker Royce's Software Project Management, a Unified Framework, Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson's The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, as well as Mr. Cantor's O-O Project Management. Managing great software teams within projects is tough in today's environment of complex solutions, anxious customers, and shrinking time-to-markets. It takes more than just common sense. It requires a game plan and an awareness of when to be flexible. Mr. Cantor lays out a series of methods that focuses on attacking project complexity, leveraging team dynamics, and what needs to be accomplished when in the controlled, iterative development lifecycle. The underlying theme is risk management. Software projects will likely be adventurous for the foreseeable future as we seek ever larger scale systems, but if more engineers and customers were grounded in the techniques espoused by this book a lot more businesses would achieve their goals.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wrong Emphasis on Project Management, July 6, 2001
This review is from: Object-Oriented Project Management with UML (Hardcover)
This book cannot be recommended. Experienced project managers will find a better and more balanced treatment of these topics elsewhere, while neophytes will be seriously misled about the role of a project manager and his responsibilities. The books main thesis is that by using object-oriented approaches, UML and an appropriate methodology the new project manger is well prepared to be successful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Managing a software development project has very little to do with any of these. Throughout the book we look in vain for proper treatment of the real issues a project manager faces: requirements elucidation, senior management involvement, change control, risk management, user involvement, etc. Where these issues are not ignored they are dismissed in a few lines. To find out why projects succeed or fail all managers should read the CHAOS report. Despite its title the book seems curiously dated. Many of its claims were also made about structured methodologies nearly twenty years ago. Here are some examples. In the Introduction the author boldly states "..we in the industry really do know how to manage software development." This is beyond positive thinking and way into deep denial. Where ever you go and what ever group of users you ask, by and large the response is the same: most software sucks. We remain very bad at managing software development. We are also told "..developers are still the best source of software managers". Rubbish! There are certainly cases where developers have become good software development managers. However for the most part, good developers are miserably unhappy and fail to perform well as managers. Developers who become managers often do so because they have false idea of what they will be expected to do. A false idea that’s perpetuated by books like this. On the plus side, the book contains numerous references many of which new project managers would benefit from reading.
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