Customer Reviews

Software Project Management For Dummies

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

 

 

I am *not* a project manager, nor do I ever want to be one. However, the art of project management affects every project I work on to one degree or another. If you're a developer geek who doesn't want to wade through the minutiae of formal traditional methodology, this particular title makes it all go down a little easier... Software Project Management for Dummies by Teresa Luckey and Joseph Phillips.

Contents:
Part 1 - Starting Your Software Project: Examining the Big Picture of Software Management; Initiating a Software Project; Creating the Software Scope
Part 2 - Planning Your Software Project: Planning for Communications; Planning for Software Project Risks; Planning for Software Quality; Building the Project Team; Creating Project Time Estimates; Building Your Project Budget
Part 3 - Executing Your Software Project Plan: Working the Project Plan; Working with Project People; Procuring Goods and Services
Part 4 - Controlling Your Software Project: Managing Changes to the Software Project; Using Earned Value Management in Software Projects; Tracking Project Performance
Part 5 - Closing Your Software Project: Finalizing the Project Management Processes; Documenting Your Software Project
Part 6 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ways to Make Your Software Project Crash and Burn; Ten Ways to Make Any Software Project Better
Appendix: Formal Project Management Training and Certification; Index

Using the entertaining Dummies style of writing, Luckey and Phillips take the reader through the importance of software project management, as well as what steps are involved in taking the project from inception to completion. They approach the topic using what I refer to as the "traditional" approach to software development. Generally speaking, requirements are gathered, development is initiated, testing takes place, and the project is delivered. This is different than the "agile" methods where there are a series of iterations involving requirements, coding, testing, and release. Many of these same project management concepts apply to both, but you most often see this level of management and documentation in the former style. What's nice with this book is that an often dull (at least to me) subject is served up with a healthy dose of tongue-in-cheek humor and practicality. They actually treat the project manager as a real person facing some impossible conditions, which is pretty much normal from what I can tell...

While this book wouldn't help you pass any project management certification tests, it would be valuable to help keep your head above water if you've been thrown into the deep end of the project management pool...

The book explains the PMI knowledge areas taking software project management as a reference. Unfortunately I didn't see much of software specific discussions in the book.
The book's structure was supposed to take you starting from project initiation through planning then executing and monitoring and controlling till the closing. Again, the authors couldn't stick to this plan as they had to jump to explain the closing of the cost KA during discussing the planning of it for no reason.
I felt very much that we have 2 authors for the book, each one explains a specific topic in his own words in different places in the book, to the extent that we see 2 headlines with the same title "Controlling project costs" in different chapters, almost repeating the same ideas.
The authors need to revise the structure of the book to make it a better.
And if they can add more software specific problems like density of bugs ..etc , would be perfect

Take the "Project Management For Dummies" book, add one or two pages about software project development techniques (Scrum, Agile, etc.) and presto, you have "Software Project Management for Dummies."
I picked this book up at the local library and within two hours I finished it. I have read many books on PM (and have the PMI PMP). This book brought nothing new to the table, and certainly nothing helpful in regards to project management of software development programs. Glad I got it from the library and did not buy it.

This book was just what I expected and very thorough. The service was quick and I've already reviewed all of the book.

This book is just a rehash of the Project Management Institute's book, "Project Management Book of Knowledge," which is an abstraction of procedures used in all project management. It is not specific to the process of building software at all. Don't buy this book, get one written by software people for software people.

I was worried that I was not going to get this book delivered -- it took a very long time (weeks). Once I got this though, I was very happy with it. The book looks and feels brand new (I thought it was used). Overall I'm happy with this purchase.

Great service! Purchased the book as a gift. Gift receiver asked for this book and is working through it.