Quality Software Management, Vol. 3: Congruent Action (Hardcover)

by Gerald M. Weinberg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This book will probably make you think twice about some decisions you currently make by reflex. That alone makes it worth reading." -- Tom Adams, IEEE Software

Product Description
To produce high-quality software, we need high-quality, effective managers. Becoming such a manager is the subject of this third stand-alone volume in Gerald Weinberg's highly acclaimed series.

To be effective, managers must act congruently. That is, managers must not only understand the concepts of good software engineering, but also practice them, which sounds easier than it is in practice. Standing in the way is a lot of emotional baggage that we all carry, the author asserts, and congruence is the way to cope with our emotional baggage.

Congruence has the sense of "fitting" -- in this case simultaneously fitting your own needs, the needs of the other people involved, and the contextual needs (in business, for example, the business needs). Examples, diagrams, and tools such as the Myers-Briggs indicator fortify the author's recommendations.  

Product Details

• Hardcover: 328 pages
• Publisher: Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated (June 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932633285
• ISBN-13: 978-0932633286
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #201,693 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredibly useful book, March 31, 2000

By	Stuart M Scott (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

This book focuses focuses on an issue of huge importance to software managers: how to respond appropriately to people (clients, bosses, team members) in difficult, emotionally charged situations. Weinberg uses simple but effective models to explain human behavior, and examples from the software engineering industry to put these models in contexts familiar to software developers. I first read this book several years ago, and as a professional facilitator had immediate opportunities to evaluate my own ability to behave congruently under stress. I quickly found that Weinberg's models helped me to understand and deal with conflicts more and more effectively. Today I use the insights gained from this book every day in my work with software development teams, clients, employees, and my own family. As Weinberg has pointed out, one of the main questions in software engineering (and perhaps in life) is Why do people so often do things wrong when they know how to do them right? As this book shows, to do the right thing often requires that in a moment a conflict or confrontation you behave congruently with all points of view, with the needs and fears and personalities of all parties to the issue. The insights, examples, and tools Weinberg provides here can help you become vastly more effective in working with others. I strongly recommend this book, and the rest of the Quality Software Management set, to people who lead software projects.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars real insights about software development process, June 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Quality Software Management: First-Order Measurement (Hardcover)

This book give good insights about the use of dynamic modelling applicated to the software development process. Great to understand the real meaning of non linearity of human based processes and great to highlight how some easy macro indicator can give info about your sw development process. The book's contribution to the sw development process is of the same type of Senge's Fifth Discipline for general management