Applied Software Project Management

reviewed by Robert Pritchett

Applied Software Project Management by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene offers us not only tools and techniques to do software project management, but also shows how to implement them.

All the common sense seems to have been wrapped up nicely and neatly in Chapter One with such sage advice as telling the truth al the time, trusting your team, review and test everything, treating everyone as equals, doing the project right and an intro to the other two parts of the book on tools and techniques and using project management effectively.

 Part I from chapters 2 through 8, covers each phase of a project, whether planning, estimating, scheduling, reviewing, knowing the software requirements, designing and programming and software testing using “process scripts”. Towards the end of each chapter there is a diagnosis section where the tools, techniques and practices do indeed help resolve issues.  In Part II, chapters 9 through 12 discuss project management and team leadership itself by understanding change, responsibility, authority and accountability, managing outsourced projects and learning when process improvement is or is not useful.

If you do any kind of project management in the software industry, the tools and techniques found in this book are immediately available for application. Why not give it a try?