Program Management - clarifying the concept
590115
Essentially, "Program Management - fundamentals of project management" provides a conceptual basis for a roadmap that all business decision makers will benefit from to ensure their organisations are appropriately allocating resources to meet the strategic direction.
1986502
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.
1916284
This book is one I wish Id seen years ago when I began a career in Project Management, and Ill use for reference from now on as a Program level manager. The concepts & potential pitfalls Kastner discusses are present to a degree in every project and his conversational style helps drive home the points in ways that are easy to understand and apply.  His use of humor in examples makes the points memorable and entertaining and reinforces the value of the checklist. Weve all managed projects that for one reason (or more!) were less than successful.  This book provides a framework for establishing a successful course of action, the guideline to measure and evaluate effectiveness along the way, and it illustrates how failure in one area of a project can derail the rest of it.  The book is written with each chapter building on the material from the previous and by the end, the reader is so convinced that a checklist is The Answer, that the final chapter on limitations becomes a delightful reminder that were working with humans and that there is an art to successful project management as well as the science. Kastner has done an excellent job of providing tools to raise the probability of success and support Project Managers as they put their art & talent to effective use.  Highly recommend for the newer Project Manager as well as those with years of experience.
3639535
Corrective Action for the Software Industry is the latest in Denise Robitaille's series of short, simple, and straightforward how-to-manage-quality books.  This is the first of the books that focuses on applying quality practices to a specific industry; and accordingly Denise is joined by her first co-author, Johanna Rothman, who is prominent in the software industry.

About two-thirds of software effort is spent on maintenance, mainly correcting products after they've been implemented.  Ironically, although the software industry frequently indulges in [equally frequently disappointing] costly new large-scale initiatives and tools aimed at home-run performance improvements, the industry seldom devotes much effort to correcting the actual causes of the specific product problem symptoms it keeps fixing.

The great strength of this book is that it alerts software folks to the need to go beyond mere remediation fixes of the immediate problem and also take corrective actions to prevent the same type of problem from occurring again.  Both the product itself and the processes producing it are candidates for corrective action.

The book describes seven corrective action steps, including not only verifying the implementation but also verifying the action's effectiveness (which too often is neglected).  I fear many in software may resist the book's emphasis on formal procedures and documentation, although the approach is proven and widely accepted in other industries.
2532164
There are a lot of project management books out there that cover a very wide array of topics. Far too many to digest by one person...

I've read several of these - but for my money, Manage It! really hits the nail on the head with all of the key concepts and knowledge that software project managers need.

There are so many nuances to successfully herding software projects across the finish line - and as it's well understood, many attempts do in fact fail.

By reading and adopting the techniques and practices described in detail throughout this book, more software projects will have a better chance at succeeding.
1779152
The bundle arrived properly packaged - the end user is beginning to investigate the properties of the program, and the book is helping her in that.
4081641
I plugged your book during a recent talk on my field of Project Management&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Managing-High-Technology-Programs-and-Projects-Third-Edition/dp/0471265578/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Managing High-Technology Programs and Projects, Third Edition</a>and said that I believe that the book should be sub-titled "Personal Project Management," as everything you say fits so well with sound project management principles. Earlier I have seen and used the SMART objective definition that you include, but I like your use of "aligned" for the A better than "achievable" or something else. Your talk -- and your book -- made me realize that I am a happy guy right now, and also that I need to keep focusing on achieving better alignment of the sometimes conflicting projects that I somehow take on with my goals for what's left of my life. Russ Archibald [...]
787187
Real time management.  The best way to manage!
2472669
This was a great book. There are so many common sense programs that should exist but dont, and this is a great (and enjoyable) walkthrough on how to align stakeholders to get them to happen.
1015194
I enjoyed the clear desciptions of the stages of development with their associated problems, rules, and stories. I most identified with the difference between a manager anouncing a decision and a team processing a solution.
 In addition, I appreciated:
 - Looking for paradigmatic features that change the way people work

- Defining the goal of software design as getting "all the best ideas of the team into the box"

- Esthetic themes as related to software design

- Expressing the meaning of a milestone with a story title

- Wonderful description of the difference between scapegoating and teamwork

- Identifying the very important things that are unknown, the gotchas

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847550
This book delivers what it promises. It give a  object oriented approach to designing databases. The basic topics and design methodology are addressed. I have become a better programer having read this book

Using several examples of data modeling (plants, argiculture testing, personal management) it tracks the process from use cases and data collection to modeling the information with UML, and presenting this informaotion in a useable format. She touches on a number of common issues, such as a 'fan trap', key generation and data types that need to be addressed early in a project.

The style is light and fast paced. The impact of different techniques are illustated in a concise manner with sufficent detail to be understandable and not overwhelming. I see it as a good basic introduction, and will use it as a foundation for more in depth study.
382848
Set-up for the program is very easy and straightforward.  Tips and advice for how to best use it have come in handy.  Having to keep track of inventory was somewhat daunting before, now with this software I don't worry.
1834557
Great book for those learning about product and project management to deliver software solutions to end users.
3935663
Its about fundamental of software engineering. Read it to be a mature dev, test or pm. Thanks Eric. You are awesome.
3605459
This book covers Microsoft Project 2010 Server edition. I see that one person thought this was a basic guide to using MS Project. It is not.  But if you are engaged in EPM projects and decision-making, this book will be much appreciated. It is not a simple "learn-to" of an off-the-shelf software program, but rather an insightful guide for anyone involved in Project Management. While I think that you would benefit from this fine book even if you didn't use Project 2010 Server currently (great concepts and helpful ideas!), it is designed for that particular software.

Chapter 1 -- Business Intelligence: Knowledge of Key Success Ingredients for Project Server 2010
Chapter 2 -- Value Proposition by the Role of Project Server 2010
Chapter 3 -- Meeting CFO Needs with Project/Server 2010
Chapter 4 -- The Business Shakes Hands with the Microsoft Project 2010 Platform
Chapter 5 -- End Users' Critical Success Factors: Using MS Project 2010
Chapter 6 -- Thinking Local, Going Social: Project Teams Can Thrive Using Microsoft Project Server 2010
Chapter 7 -- Better Together: Microsoft Project 2010 Worksites Using SharePoint Server 2010
Chapter 8 -- Effective Transition of Strategy and Execution: Program Management Using Microsoft Project Server 2010
Chapter 9 -- Intelligent Business Planning and Controlling Using Microsoft Project 2010
Chapter 10 -- Intelligent Business Planning and Reporting Using Microsoft Project 2010

This is a professional's choice for real life decision-making Project Management. Well done.
3498038
Very well written.  There is the science to backup the programming.  An all-in-one resource that I will continue to use.
2292826
This book is about applying TOC to project management. After reading this book I understood why TOC for project management is not as straight forward as it might first appear. Not only are projects not repeatable like production assembly lines buts in a multi-project environment you need to take shared resources into account. This is even more difficult when the managers for each project are different people. Lessons learned:

- Estimates should be "In X days with 50% chance of completion"
- Cut estimates in 2 or 3 if suspect that tasks have padding
- All the padding should go for the project but less than sum of padding
- Add time buffers (at no cost) when paths merge with critical path
- If a resource is shared between projects then it may be a bottleneck
- Resource bottlenecks should be treated as such: identify, exploit, subordinate, elevate...
- No due dates so as not to encourage the "student syndrome"

Of all the business novels by Eli Goldratt, I think that this is the one that I have learned the most from. As with all his novels, it's easy and fun to read with the added benefit that you will have learnt to better manage your projects. A must.