Friday 21 September, 2012

Notes from Book: Software Project Survival Guide

Written by Steve McConnell, an author of Code Complete and Rapid Development, Software Project Survival Guide is an useful resource for both aspiring and experienced software project managers. The templates and checklists discussed in this book along with a survival test are available on this book's web site. Here I am noting down some wisdom nuggets spread throughout this book that I found quite relevant for my current work:
  • Early in the project you can have firm cost and schedule targets or a firm feature set, but not both.
  • Involving users throughout the project is a critical software project survival skill.
  • The working software is a more accurate status report than any paper report could ever be.
  • Staged delivery is not a panacea. But, on balance, the additional overhead it demands is a small price to pay for the significantly improved status visibility, quality visibility , flexibility, estimation accuracy, and risk reduction it provides.
  • It's better to wait for a productive programmer to become available than it is to wait for the first available programmer to become productive.
  • The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that dirty remains long after quick has been forgotten.
  • No individual is a success who hurts the team, and no individual is a failure who helps it.

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