Quality Software Project Management [Paperback]

Robert T. Futrell (Author), Donald F. Shafer (Author), Linda Isabell Shafer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0130912972 | ISBN-13: 978-0130912978 | Publication Date: February 3, 2002 | Edition: 1

Drawing on best practices identified at the Software Quality Institute and embodied in bodies of knowledge from the Project Management Institute, the American Society of Quality, IEEE, and the Software Engineering Institute, Quality Software Project Management teaches 34 critical skills that allow any manager to minimize costs, risks, and time-to-market. Written by leading practitioners Robert T. Futrell, Donald F. Shafer, and Linda I. Shafer, it addresses the entire project lifecycle, covering process, project, and people. It contains extensive practical resources-including downloadable checklists, templates, and forms.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The practical handbook of software project management-by practitioners, for practitioners!

Quality Software Project Management is the practical, start-to-finish project management resource for every software professional-experienced managers and developers moving into leadership roles. Drawing on best practices identified at The University of Texas at Austin Software Quality Institute's successful Software Project Management Certificate Program, it identifies 34 key competencies every project manager can use to minimize cost, risk, and time-to-market. Written by leading practitioners, it addresses all three pillars of any successful software venture: process, project, and people.

• Integrates best practices from the fields of quality, software engineering, and project management
• Shows how to tailor best practices to the unique requirements of your projects
• Covers the entire project lifecycle: planning, initiation, execution, monitoring/control, and closing
• Illuminates its techniques with real-world software management case studies
• Offers a solid foundation for pursuing advanced certifications such as the Project Management Institute's Project Management Professional (PMP(r)) and the American Society for Quality's Certified Software Quality Engineer (CSQE)

Endorsed by the Software Quality Institute (SQI), Quality Software Project Management teaches skills you can use right now to drive maximum business value in any project-large or small.

Contains practical checklists, templates, and forms-all downloadable from the book's companion Web site

Practical checklists, templates, forms—all downloadable from the book's companion Web Site: http://stealthis.athensgroup.com/QSPM

About the Author

ROBERT T. FUTRELL is a consultant for Project Management Systems in Austin, TX, specializing in project management and software quality engineering. He was formerly a software project manager for Texas Instruments, and currently works as a Program Management Master and controller at Motorola in Austin.

DONALD F. SHAFER is co-founder and CTO of Athens Group Inc., a consultingfirm specializing in integrating technology strategy and software solutions.He is also an adjunct professor at Southwest Texas State University and hasworked for Boeing, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and Motorola.

LINDA I. SHAFER is an instructor and the mentor for the Software Quality Institute's Software Project Management Certificate Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She has worked for Motorola, IBM, leading consultancies, and major universities.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 1680 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (February 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130912972
• ISBN-13: 978-0130912978
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7.4 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #572,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best from among 2 dozen I've read on the subject, March 23, 2002

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quality Software Project Management (Paperback)

This is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive book available on software project management. I don't make this statement lightly - I have over two dozen books on the subject, and have reviewed a significant portion of them on this site. It isn't the fact that the book consists of 33 chapters and 7 appendices and consumes nearly 1700 pages that makes it comprehensive. What distinguishes this book from the rest are:
(1) A process-oriented approach that is completely consistent with the PMI PMBOK, fully supports requirements for the higher levels of the capability maturity model, and can be adapted to virtually any life cycle model.
(2) It completely covers the important elements of planning, scheduling and control, including work breakdown structure development, associating tasks and deliverables, estimating (the focus is on the constructive cost model), advanced scheduling techniques (including critical chain scheduling that has emerged from the theory of constraints body of knowledge), and earned value project management.
(3) Ties software engineering, system engineering, reliability, SQA and software configuration management to the project process. Many books briefly address these, while this book addresses the requirements, issues and techniques head-on.
(4) Business plan development, requirements analysis, project deliverables and other artifacts are thoroughly covered.
(5) The web site that augments this book has errata, templates and checklists (in HTML format), links and other material that supports using the book as a course text.

There are so many things I like about this book, but the size and depth of content makes it nearly overwhelming. My favorite chapters are 21-Metrics, 26-Continuous Improvement, 28-Post Performance Analysis and 32-Legal Issues. However, these reflect my personal interests. The book is, in my opinion, uniformly excellent. The only flaw I found was the scant attention given to releasing an application or system into production, and no mention of how to tie together issue management to the enhancement and maintenance cycle that initiates once an application is in production. However, to be fair, this book is focused on project management and not software engineering. An outstanding companion to this book would be Successful Software Development by Scott E. Donaldson, Stanley G. Siegel, which provides the same in-depth treatment of software engineering as this book does for project management.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Encyclopedic, but bloated and overly academic, March 4, 2005

By 

S. Nagiel (Gaithersburg, MD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Quality Software Project Management (Paperback)

This book's primary strength is in leaving no software management stone unturned. It relates well to established methodologies, standards, definitions, practices, etc. But, at over 1600 pages, it could use some serious editing. Many topics the authors like to dance around in an introductory (and obviously academic) fashion before settling on the chosen path. The style and language often reek of vague, committee-authored fashion, and make for some frankly boring reading. By far its worst crime is its use of illustrations and graphics, which are--generally but almost universally--confusingly drawn, meagerly captioned, and barely elaborated upon in the text. This is a shame, since many of the concepts in management and software can be elucidated wonderfully with quality symbolism and illustrations, yet this book often manages to obfuscate them further.

Overall, this book serves as a thorough and well-researched reference tool, but makes for a lousy textbook.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indeed very practical for quality, June 11, 2007

By 

Adalberto Lovato (Santa Rosa, RS Brazil) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Quality Software Project Management (Paperback)

Such a comprehensive book cannot be wholly used by a practitioner. My interest is on quality. On this subject the book is very practical and can direct all those that are hands-on in a project team. Chapter 30 is very useful for those involved with CMM Level 1 Quality Assurance. That is the start, because from there one can consult others chapters to have a broad view of a project and be prepared to interact with peers.