Lean Integration

Published October 11th, 2011 Under Process, Project | Leave a Comment

This book is the sequel of a first book titled “Integration Competency Center: An Implementation Methodology” and is aimed at taking it “to the next level by adding more specific best practices and a rich collection of case studies”. The book is divided in three parts. The first part provides an overview of Lean integration. The second part introduces the seven Lean integration principles and the last part discusses lean integration competency areas. Read more

Leadership, Teamwork, and Trust

Published August 8th, 2011 Under Project | Leave a Comment

The late Watts S. Humphrey has been an important personality of the software development world. He led the development of the Software Capability Maturity Model (CMMI), an internationally recognized standard in the field of software process improvement. The title of his last book is a little bit misleading as it is mainly focused on the Team Software Process (TSP) than presenting a broader perspective on software development management or leadership. If you are your interested in these topics, you should rather read Humphrey’s “Reflections on Management“.

The goal of the Team Software Process is to improve the levels of quality and productivity of a team’s software development project. In its first half, the book provides a global presentation of the TSP with the help of many real cases and examples. The second half consist of five appendixes that present detailed information on how to get started with the TSP and how to use it within organizations. In this section, I particularly liked the guidelines for the pilot project selection and the project launch review.

The information in the book is well structured and the mix between the theory and practice parts is fairly balanced. I will recommend this book to every software development manager and project manager who is interested in getting an additional perspective on how to improve its projects results.

Reference: “Leadership, Teamwork, and Trust”, Watts S. Humphrey and James W. Over, Addison-Wesley, 309 pages, IBSN 978-0-321-62450-5

Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk

Quotes

“With few exceptions, software organizations rarely make firm product delivery commitments, write fixed-price development contracts, or provide meaningful product quality warranties. This has led to a general industry attitude that defective software is a fact of life and that the customers must bear the cost, expense and inconvenience of recovering from the poor quality of the software product they buy.”

“The reason that most software developers don’t seem to get excited about meeting cost and schedule commitments is that these usually are not team goals. Although management may think that cost and schedule are important, typically no one ever tells the team why these goals are important, and the team isn’t involved in making the commitments. As far as typical software teams are concerned, management makes the cost and schedule commitments, and the team meet them if the can. In fact, the team often think that management’s requested commitments are totally unreasonable, but because they are paid to do what management asks, they give it the old school try.
Typical software teams get excited about delivering great products and having a cohesive team experience because these are the tacit goals of every member, and the team doesn’t even have to discuss them. In fact, teams rarely discuss goals at all; most knowledge-working teams just start working. There is no team-building effort, no discussion of team goals, and in fact no real discussion of management goals.”

“When people perform even a simple task, they tend to forget or skip steps, and their results are often substandard. As processes become more complex, process discipline is generally poor, so it is not surprising that for larger and more extensive processes like software development, poor process compliance is almost inevitable. That is, it is inevitable unless the practitioners know precisely what to do, have well-designed operational processes to guide them, and are motivated and supported to precisely follow this process.

Management 3.0

Published March 11th, 2011 Under Project | 1 Comment

In his foreword, Robert C. Martin wrote that he hates management book, but “this book is smart”. I think that this book might be smart because Jurgen is smart. To start with a full disclosure, I have to say that I know Jurgen Appelo since the beginning of 2008 when he wrote is first article for the Summer 2008 issue of Methods & Tools ” We Increment to Adapt, We Iterate to Improve”. You will already enjoy in this article the distinctive style that Jurgen adopt to investigate software development problem, although he was perhaps less tempted to put some grains of humor in his writing at that time. Read more

Adaptive Project Framework

Published January 21st, 2011 Under Project | Leave a Comment

In the category of project management books, this one is a little bit different, as its goal is to present an open framework and not a prescriptive model. As the author says, many project managers prefer to apply an existing recipe for their project. If you are ready to step out of your comfort zone, this book contains many ingredients that will allow you to create your own recipe to manage software development projects. Read more

Coaching Agile Teams

Published November 19th, 2010 Under Project | Leave a Comment

Transmitting human experience through written material is not easy. As Rachel Davies did in “Agile Coaching”, Lyssa Adkins manages to do it brilliantly in this book that covers the same topic. Based on her own experience of “recovering command-and-control project manager”, she write about all the circumstances where you can coach people, explaining both what you should and shouldn’t do. Read more

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