Software Project Survival Guide (Developer Best Practices) 1st Edition

by Steve McConnell (Author)

74 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-1572316218

ISBN-10: 9781572316218

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Equip yourself with SOFTWARE PROJECT SURVIVAL GUIDE. It's for everyone with a stake in the outcome of a development project--and especially for those without formal software project management training. That includes top managers, executives, clients, investors, end-user representatives, project managers, and technical leads.

Here you'll find guidance from the acclaimed author of the classics CODE COMPLETE and RAPID DEVELOPMENT. Steve McConnell draws on solid research and a career's worth of hard-won experience to map the surest path to your goal--what he calls "one specific approach to software development that works pretty well most of the time for most projects." Nineteen chapters in four sections cover the concepts and strategies you need for mastering the development process, including planning, design, management, quality assurance, testing, and archiving. For newcomers and seasoned project managers alike, SOFTWARE PROJECT SURVIVAL GUIDE draws on a vast store of techniques to create an elegantly simplified and reliable framework for project management success.

So don't worry about wandering among complex sets of project management techniques that require years to sort out and master. SOFTWARE PROJECT SURVIVAL GUIDE goes straight to the heart of the matter to help your projects succeed. And that makes it a required addition to every professional's bookshelf.

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Editorial Reviews

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Targeted at managers (from the top of organizations down through technical leads), McConnell's book provides a blueprint for a successfully managed project; the postulated development effort involves "3 to 25 team members and schedules of 3 to 18 months." At 288 pages, the book could be thinner, but it's easy enough to get through. McConnell has an engaging, conversational style, with a tinge of irreverent humor -- both of which make this book easy to approach. He uses little jargon and includes a comprehensive glossary, so nontechies should find it easy enough to follow.

-- Chris Jaekl, Dr. Dobb's Journal -- Dr. Dobb's Journal

About the Author

Steve McConnell is recognized as one of the premier authors and voices in the development community. He is Chief Software Engineer of Construx Software and was the lead developer of Construx Estimate and of SPC Estimate Professional, winner of Software Development magazine's Productivity Award. He is the author of several books, including Code Complete and Rapid Development, both honored with Software Development magazine's Jolt Award.

Product details

Series: Developer Best Practices
Paperback: 306 pages
Publisher: Microsoft Press; 1 edition (October 25, 1997)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781572316218
ISBN-13: 978-1572316218
ASIN: 1572316217
Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 0.8 x 8.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 74 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #322,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #92 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Project Management > PMP Exam
- #322 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Software Design & Engineering
- #413 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Project Management > Business

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February 26, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

In "Rapid Development," a 600-ish page treatise on software project management by the same author, Steve McConnell claims that "a book half this size would be overly general to the point of uselessness." One year later, he wrote this book, which clocks in at slightly less than half the length of Rapid Development. Coincidentally, it is overly general to the point of uselessness.

There's nothing inherently wrong with this book. It's just a mad-cap race to summarize the material already available in Rapid Development into a smaller, more streamlined, significantly less useful package. If you're going to read one book on software project management, it probably shouldn't be this one. And if you've already read a book on the topic, you won't learn anything new here.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

well-researched

February 3, 2008

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I'm a one-man database development shop at a nonprofit with a shoestring budget. Without the benefit of senior level programmers, I've had to learn most of my software engineering lessons the hard way- by experience.

I picked up this book seven years into the job, which in retrospect was about seven years too late. In some respects, this book repeats lessons that that have already become obvious through experience (e.g., software testing needs to be performed separately from development). But, this lends credibility to my judgment, and provides new insights substantiated by software engineering research studies. Non-technical management and funders are responsive to the hard figures I often find myself citing from this book. For example:

1) Programmers are 2.5 times more productive in a quiet office vs. a cubicle- so, I need to be allowed to work from home

2) The most efficient programmers are 10 times more productive than the least efficient programmers- really, you would think this would be obvious, but when work needs to be contracted, the low bidder is not necessarily the best choice over the long haul

Currently faced with my most substantial and challenging programming project yet, I'm essentially using this book as a cookbook to process. Upfront I was a bit overwhelmed with the scope of the project. Having finished the book, I have a well-defined process in place, am confident this will get done, and feel I am much more articulate describing the stages of software development to management and contracted vendors. Some presumably industry-standard strategies are proving invaluable- implementing a Top Ten Risk list to ensure that major barriers are addressed upfront rather than deferred, creating specific milestones, etc.

This book (or an equivalent) should absolutely be mandatory for anyone about to take on their first major software project. It is most useful because it reads like a cookbook- guiding you through all the phases of software development, one after the other.

6 people found this helpful7 people found this helpful

Solid Guide for the Business Manager or Exec

March 30, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

As a non-technical business executive tasked with running a tech-heavy organization, I had to get up to speed quickly on best practices, methodologies and approaches to development. Our organization develops the bulk of our software internally, and the Engineering team represents nearly half of the company's expense spend. McConnell's book proved invaluable in providing checklists, ideas, best practices and a solid overview of the development process. The organization of the book was excellent, and the end of chapter notes with practices and pitfalls, as well as copious checklists provide the non-technical manager with some guideposts to understand and evaluate a mature process. As noted in some other reviews, this is probably not for the "First important project", but is best applied to a relatively mature and established process and organization. A good read and a useful book.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Good theory on project management

November 27, 2002

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book is a strong theoretical background every software project manager should understand. The author provides deep analysis why such a big number of software projects fail. The author offers a set of reality-testing tools (software project survival test) that helps to understand chances of a project to success or to fail, from the very beginning.
An intriguing idea is that "software project need hierarchy" is essentially the same as Maslow's "human need hierarchy": human beings respond to a hierarchy of needs that involve a natural progression from lower motives to higher ones. Lower motives such as food, air and water must be satisfied before we can be motivated by the need for belongingness, love, self-esteem or self-actualization. Similar hierarchy of needs applies to software projects.
The author clearly shows that the outcome of any project depends equally on both the customer and the project team, and on the way of their communication and cooperation.
Showing the power of process and distinguishing "process" from "thrashing" and "productive work", the author doesn't decline that the people are always important.
Another cunning idea presented by the author is "The Cone of Uncertainty" which means "early in the project you can have firm cost and schedule target, or a firm feature set, but not both".
While by no doubt the first part of the book "The Survival Mind-Set" is an excellent theoretic inspection, the remaining, practical parts of the book are questionable. I'd recommend you to take them skeptically, and, before taking decisive action, getting the full picture by reading "Agile Software Development" by Alistair Cockburn to get the overview of the modern methodologies, "Extreme Programming Explained" by Kent Beck as an example of such methodoloty, "Peopleware" by Tom Demarco & Timothy Lister to make sure that the good workplace and the jelled team is a major factor, "Quality is Free" by Philip B. Crosby to understand what really the quality is and "Leadership Without Easy Answers" by Ronald A. Heifetz to assure that nothing will succeed without a leader.

7 people found this helpful8 people found this helpful

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