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Software Best Practices Reading List Software Processes Software Process Improvement Books Managing the Software Development Process From the back cover: "The author, drawing on years of experience at IBM and the SEI, provides here practical guidance for improving the software development and maintenance process. He focuses on understanding and managing the software process because this is where he feels organizations now encounter the most serious problems, and where he feels there is the best opportunity for significant improvement. Both program managers and practicing programmers, whether working on small programs or large-scale projects, will learn how good their own software process is, how they can make their process better, and where they need to begin." Click Here to Buy "Managing the Software Development Process"!
Software Process Improvement From the Book Description: "The creation of quality software on time and within budget has been a major problem facing the software industry for several decades. Consideration of software development and maintenance as an engineering discipline to control the developmental process can help alleviate these obstacles. This new book focuses on the best practices for software process improvement (SPI) and related international standards providing a valuable guide and reference. The text is a collection of original and republished papers providing a significant survey on the use of SPI and software process assessment (SPA) as practiced by companies such as Lockheed Martin, Siemens, and Hewlett Packard. Among the important features of the book are chapters on software process evaluation, how to best perform SPI, ISO 9000 and TickIT-an alternative approach to SPA, as well as the latest information on the CMM integration project. The text also provides vivid descriptions on the most important international and national standards for SPI, in particular ISO 9001, ISO 9000-3, ISO/IEC 9126. ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 12207. Software Process Improvement benefits software managers who want to learn about the requirements and effects of SPI, software process staff who need to understand the mechanisms of SPA and SPI, software developers who are affected by SPI and need to know how to apply it, and college students who want to understand the various methods of SPA and SPI". Click Here to Buy "Software Process Improvement"!
The ROI of Software Process Improvement: Metrics for Project Managers and Software Engineers From the Book Description: "An indispensable addition to your project management, software engineering or computer science bookshelf, this book masterfully illuminates and simplifies otherwise complex topics in ROI. It presents extremely simple, but overwhelmingly powerful metrics, models, and methods for designing professional business cases and provides hard-hitting economic justification. It explores the most popular international methods, models, and standards for software process improvement. The author's practical tutorial on the costs, benefits, and ROI of software process improvement is a soup-to-nuts guide that helps readers rapidly master powerful concepts. He demystifies esoteric concepts in ROI and provides a self-contained tutorial of ROI methods for novices as well as economic experts and a treasure-trove of value adding economic data which is missing from popular texts." About the Author: "David F. Rico is a software process improvement consultant specializing in cost, benefit, and return-on-investment analysis. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S.A. in Software Engineering and has been in the field of computer programming since 1983. He has been an international keynote speaker and is a well published author. Some of his noteworthy accomplishments include designing software for NASA's $20 billion space station, spearheading SW-CMM® and ISO 9001 initiatives for Fujitsu in Tokyo, modernizing a family of U.S. Air Force static radar ranges, reengineering 36 military logistics depots in Cairo, designing a $30 billion constellation of U.S. Air Force satellites, conducting a $42 million U.S. Navy source selection, designing a $70 million cost model for U.S. Navy aircraft, and participating in over 15 SW-CMM® initiatives."
Creating a Software Engineering Culture From the Publisher: "Written in a remarkably clear style, Creating a Software Engineering Culture presents a comprehensive approach to improving the quality and effectiveness of the software development process. In twenty chapters spread over six parts, Wiegers promotes the tactical changes required to support process improvement and high-quality software development. Throughout the text, Wiegers identifies scores of culture builders and culture killers, and he offers a wealth of references to resources for the software engineer, including seminars, conferences, publications, videos, and on-line information. With case studies on process improvement and software metrics programs and an entire Part on action planning (called "What to Do on Monday"), this practical book guides the reader in applying the concepts to real life. Topics include software culture concepts, team behaviors, the five dimensions of a software project, recognizing achievements, optimizing customer involvement, the project champion model, tools for sharing the vision, requirements traceability matrices, the capability maturity model, action planning, testing, inspections, metrics-based project estimation, the cost of quality, and much more! " Click Here to Buy "Creating a Software Engineering Culture"! Software Process Improvement: Practical Guidelines for Business Success From the Back Cover: "This book will help you to manage and control the quality of your organization's software products. Continually dealing with the problems caused by software defects can be both time-consuming and demanding. Sami Zahrani's pragmatic approach will take you from reactive fire-fighting to a preventative culture of disciplined and continuous process improvement." This book will help you: (1) establish a process-focused software development organization; (2) design and implement procedures for developing quality software in time and within budget; (3) benchmark your organization against the industry standards for the software process, including the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), ISO 9001, the new standard ISO/IEC 15504 (originally known as SPICE) and Bootstrap. About the Author: Dr. Sami Zahran is one of the chief advocates of software process improvement and its impact on organizations. He has over three decades of experience in the software industry assuming senior positions with large organizations including ICL, the United Nations, DEC and currently with IBM. He was trained in Software Process Improvement at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr Zahran regularly teaches courses on the subject and is an invited speaker at numerous international conferences and workshops. Click Here to Buy "Software Process Improvement: Practical Guidelines for Business Success"!
Introduction to the Personal Software Process by Watts Humphrey From amazon: "Introduction To The Personal Software Process provides help for software engineers at all levels of experience, from students to experienced professionals, helping them become far more effective by allowing them to manage their work habits and personal software management techniques. It provides advice and guidance from one of the world's leading software process and software quality experts while providing practical exercises for improving personal skills. Support materials are freely available on the Addison-Wesley website at http://www.awl.com/cseng including copies of the forms illustrated in the book and spreadsheets for the exercises." Click Here to Buy "Introduction to the Personal Software Process"!
Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed by Barry Boehm and Richard Turner
Empirical Software Engineering: Applied Software Engineering Research and Best Industry Practice by Dr. Victor Basili From the Publisher: "Empirical Software Engineering provides a forum for applied software engineering research with a strong empirical component. Its goal is to promote applied research on relevant problems following the scientific method and the reporting of best practice in industry. It is therefore a venue to publish empirical results which are relevant to both researchers and practitioners. Reported empirical studies usually involve the collection and analysis of data and experience that can be used to characterize, evaluate and reveal relationships between software development deliverables, practices, and technologies. Over time, it is expected that such empirical results will form a body of knowledge leading to widely accepted and well-formed theories."
Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy by Watts Humphrey Click Here to Buy "Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy"!
Software Productivity By Harlan D. Mills Many of the articles illustrate Mills's fundamental premise that software engineers who use and understand the mathematics of programming consistently produce better software. The impact of this book has been felt worldwide. Topics include top-down structured programming, chief programmer teams, measurements of program complexity, buying quality software, and more!" Click Here to Buy "Software Productivity"!
By Scott Rosenberg From Publishers Weekly: "Software is easy to make, except when you want it to do something new," Rosenberg observes—but the catch is that "the only software worth making is software that does something new." This two-tiered insight comes from years of observing a team led by Mitch Kapor (the creator of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet) in its efforts to create a "personal information manager" that can handle to-do lists as easily as events scheduling and address books. Rosenberg's fly-on-the-wall reporting deftly charts the course taken by Kapor's Open Source Applications Foundation, while acknowledging that every software programmer finds his or her own unique path to a brick wall in the development process. (The software is still in development even now.) With equal enthusiasm, Rosenberg digs into the history of the computer industry's efforts to make programming a more efficient process. Though there's a lot of technical information, it's presented in very accessible terms, primarily through the context of project management. Even readers whose computer expertise ends at retrieving their e-mail will be able to enjoy digressions into arcane subjects like object-oriented programming." Click Here to Buy "Dreaming in Code"!
CMM & CMMI Books CMMI Distilled: A Practical Introduction to Integrated Process Improvement, 2nd Edition by Dennis Ahern, Aaron Clouse, Richard Turner From The Book Description: "Capability Maturity Model IntegrationSM (CMMI) has rapidly become a preferred means of improving organizational processes in industry and government. Building on a decade of work with process improvement models, including the Capability Maturity Model® (CMM®) for Software and the Systems Engineering Capability Model, a team of over two hundred engineering and process improvement experts worked for three years to create this broader, more agile instrument for guiding, integrating, and appraising improvement activities. CMMI provides a single, integrated framework for improving processes throughout an organization, enhancing the quality and efficiency of the organization as a whole. The CMMI Product Suite is rich in detail and guidance, but correspondingly large and somewhat complex. The sheer volume of information it presents can seem overwhelming. CMMI Distilled reduced that complexity with a fresh and approachable introduction to the key elements of CMMI and integrated process improvement. This new edition of CMMI Distilled, updated for CMMI version 1.1, includes more material in layman's language to meet a wider variety of reader's needs, but has not lost any of the technical content that made the first edition so successful. Written for those new to model-based process improvement, it also offers insights that can help even battle-scarred process improvement veterans and experienced systems, software and quality engineers perform better. CMMI® Distilled, Second Edition is especially appropriate for executives and managers who need to understand why process improvement is valuable, why CMMI is a tool of choice, and how to maximize the return on their efforts and investments. The three authors have been involved with CMMI since its inception, and they bring a wealth of their own experience and knowledge to this book. They highlight the pitfalls and short cuts that are all too often learned by costly experience. Above all, they provide a context for understanding why CMMI is the fastest growing process improvement framework in the world."
CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement by Suzanne Garcia and Richard Turner Click Here to Buy "CMMI Survival Guide: Just Enough Process Improvement"!
Six Sigma Books What is Six Sigma? From the Book Description: "Six Sigma is today's most talked-about system for improving the quality of organizational processes. Written by bestselling author Peter Pande, What Is Six Sigma? is a concise summary of the core themes and processes of Six Sigma. Unlike almost all other books on Six Sigma, it is written for the employees of organizations rolling out Six Sigma not just managers. This helpful overview describes what Six Sigma is, why companies are implementing it, and how employees can make it a success in their own organizations." Based on the bestselling The Six Sigma Way, this accessible introduction to Six Sigma answers typical employee questions, concerns, and even skepticism about this revolutionary program. Includes:
Click Here to Buy "What is Six Sigma?"!
Six Sigma Software Development From the book description: "Since Six Sigma has had marked success in improving quality in other settings, and since the quality of software remains poor, it seems a natural evolution to apply the concepts and tools of Six Sigma to system development and the IT department. Until now however, there were no books available that applied these concepts to the system development process. Six Sigma Software Development fills this void and illustrates how Six Sigma concepts can be applied to all aspects of the evolving system development process. It includes the traditional waterfall model and support of legacy systems, but also more recent development innovations such as rapid application development, packaged software implementation, and outsourcing.The volume begins with a basic primer of Six Sigma, using a case study to provide a clear explanation of Six Sigma concepts and their application. It then explains the relevance of Six Sigma to the system development process, to quality assurance, and the SEI CMM-mapping the concepts and tools to all aspects of application development. A primary focus is placed on eliminating defects and improving customer satisfaction through the use of tools that help ensure requirements are clearly defined, understood, and met. Finally, the book shows how Six Sigma can be used for more than a single project, in that the concepts can be applied to measure, manage, and improve the performance of your entire IT department." Click Here to Buy "Six Sigma Software Development"!
Software Maintenance Books Improving Software Quality: An Insider's Guide to TQM
by Lowell Jay Arthur From the Book Description: "Do you want to cut development and maintenance cycle times by 50% or more? Do you want to reduce costs by 50% or more? Do you want to virtually eliminate software defects and related reliability problems? Do you want to get out from under the burden of your existing software? Then, you need this book—an insider's guide to Total Quality Management. Improving Software Quality tells you how to apply Total Quality Management (TQM) to software development and evolution. You'll find out how to translate the manufacturing orientation of existing TQM material into a software environment with extensive examples for both development and maintenance. Using the Software Engineering Institute's assessment (SEI), you'll learn how to quickly benchmark your existing software organization against the best in the world and begin to implement proven action plans to establish a baseline of excellence." Click Here to Buy "Improving Software Quality: An Insider's Guide to TQM"!
Software Engineering, Vol. 2: The Supporting Processes by Richard H. Thayer This second volume on software engineering processes includes reprinted and newly authored papers that describe the supporting life cycle processes that can prepare individuals to take the IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Development Professional examination. Volume 2 details the eight supporting life cycle processes that developers need to employ and execute in the engineering of software products. This required support plays an integral part and has a distinct purpose that affects the overall success and quality of the software project. Click Here to Buy "Software Engineering, Vol. 2: The Supporting Processes"!
Practical Software Maintenance: Best Practices for Managing Your Software Investment by Thomas M. Pigoski From the Amazon Book Description: "The amount of time and expense spent debugging, customizing, updating, and maintaining software far outstrips the amount spent buying it. This book provides a simple and straightforward introduction to software maintenance activities that work. It is the first book to cover software transition--the process of moving the product from developer to maintainer. Written by one of the world's foremost experts on software maintenance, it draws on real world case studies to explore basic do's and don'ts, IEEE and ISO requirements, organizational issues, and the often sticky issue of metrics. Other topics addressed include object-oriented software and client/server software, corporate education and training programs, creative cost controls, and more."
Mastering the Requirements Process From Amazon: "Written in an engaging style and relevant for any software analyst or designer, Mastering the Requirements Process provides a powerful and useful guide to defining more complete software requirements that lead to better software overall. It's also filled with innovative advice. The heart of this book is the authors' Volere Requirements Process Model, a step-by-step guide to gathering your requisites. Throughout this book, the authors use this process to explicate a single case study--a system for a municipality that will optimize the de-icing of roadways during snowy weather. Along the way, the book provides a solid guide to identifying and refining requirements, both functional and nonfunctional (such as performance and ease of use). There are many excellent ideas in the book, including the notion of fitness for your requirements, which can be later used to track whether the software is successful. The book also wisely separates technology from requirements so that analysts can concentrate on understanding and modeling business problems instead of moving right away to the nuts and bolts of implementation. Even if you don't adopt the Volere model in toto, you can benefit from the concepts of "trawling" (a metaphor for the requirements-gathering process), quality gateways (in which tentative requirements are evaluated for inclusion in a project), and the wise use of patterns to help simplify the process. Anchored by numerous examples (including many samples of successful requirements), the book provides an appealing mix of new ideas along with a remarkably clear presentation. In short, Mastering the Requirements Process provides useful advice that can make the project specification building phase of the software process easier and more robust. It provides the first steps for improving overall software quality for your organization. Topics covered: Volere Requirements Process Model; project blastoff; determining requirements; user and stakeholders; project constraints; requirements constraints; use cases; business events; adjacent systems; innovation; trawling for requirements: apprenticing, interviews, and videotape; functional and nonfunctional requirements; fit criteria; quality gateways; traceability; prototyping and scenarios; low and high fidelity prototypes; patterns and requirements reuse; improving the requirements gathering process." Click Here to Buy "Mastering the Requirements Process"!
by Tom Gilb From the Back Cover: "Competitive Engineering documents Tom Gilb's unique, ground-breaking approach to communicating management objectives and systems engineering requirements, clearly and unambiguously. Competitive Engineering is a revelation for anyone involved in management and risk control. Already used by thousands of managers and systems engineers around the world, this is a handbook for initiating, controlling, and delivering complex projects on time and within budget. Competitive Engineering copes explicitly with the rapidly changing environment that is a reality for most of us today. Elegant, comprehensive and accessible, the Competitive Engineering methodology provides a practical set of tools and techniques that enable readers to effectively design, manage, and deliver results in any complex organization - in engineering, industry, systems engineering, software, IT, the service sector and beyond."
More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice By Karl Wiegers In More About Software Requirements: Thorny Issues and Practical Advice, the author describes practical techniques for gathering and managing the software requirements that help you meet project specifications and customer expectations. A leading speaker and consultant in the field of requirements engineering, Karl Wiegers takes questions raised by other professional software developers and analysts as a basis for the practical solutions and best practices offered in this guide. Succinct and immediately useful, this book is a must-have for developers and analysts."
Software Testing Books Managing the Testing Process From Amazon: "For a practical guide to software testing, readers can look to Rex Black's Managing the Testing Process, a compendium of real-world advice on managing software testing successfully. It is a veritable hodge-podge of sample test documents and is filled with recommendations from an old hand at test management. Early sections examine the design of test plans, along with strategies for assessing and prioritizing risk as well as catching bugs through effective testing. Sample case studies include a network hardware device and a Java word processor. Throughout this book, a variety of documents (including Excel spreadsheets and Access databases) are presented to get you started on your own testing projects. (Though reproduced here in truly microscopic print, all sample documents are included on the accompanying CD-ROM.) The book also looks at metrics for measuring the performance of your testing operation. Managing the Testing Process shows how a bug-tracking database is the most effective model for managing the testing cycle. This book is chock-full of advice on testing management. The author also presents dozens of tips for succeeding in the software Q/A job market. Sections on designing a lab and staffing it, including a valuable discussion on when to use consultants and when to outsource testing, provide a practical guide to today's testing management. After an introduction to working with other players in today's software organizations, a final chapter looks at managing testing across different locations. Many developers spend time in Q/A as a stepping stone to careers in software design. And as the author points out, the job of test engineer is growing in popularity. Read this book to find out the often harsh realities of software testing along with strategies for improving the effectiveness of your software testing team." Click Here to Buy "Managing the Testing Process"!
Critical Testing Processes: Plan, Prepare, Perform, Perfect From The Author: "I've spent most of my twenty years in the software and hardware business in the arena of testing. For the first few years as a test practitioner, I struggled to keep my head above water. Ultimately, I mastered some basic tools and techniques. As I learned more about testing, I started to notice certain common themes.Some of these themes had to do with events- good and bad - that happened over and over again on software, hardware, and system projects. For some of these events, I found that some teams could create order in their projects. These teams handled these common events better than the teams that bounced from one crisis to the next, reacting constantly, immersed in chaos. The successful teams had good processes. Some of these successful project teams implemented written processes, while others accumulated "institutional knowledge" in their wise- and sometimes prematurely gray- heads. While I have nothing against a shared company culture, it's hard to pass along the processes you've learned unless you write them down, whether formally or informally, as checklists. This book takes the informal road. I describe twelve specific test processes, using checklists. Each process is critical to test team success. I describe these processes in chronological order. First we plan the test activities. Next we prepare to test. After that, we perform the tests. Finally, we perfect the system under test and the testing activities themselves. Many other books have covered the topics of preparing and performing tests in great detail. My experience is that, as testers, we generally do a good job in these areas. So, instead of rehashing what we already know, I focus on opportunities for improvement. I devote eleven of the seventeen chapters to the topics of planning and perfecting. By far, these are the areas where we as testers have the most difficulty. This is especially true for complex and critical projects. Where will this book take you? During the early colonization of the American continent in the 1540s, This book isn't about quixotic quests. There are no streets of gold that will make us effortlessly rich. We can't side-step our human limitations. I don't have infallible processes. As Frederick Brooks wrote in "The Mythical Man-Month," we don't have any silver bullets to kill our system project monsters, including the ones that live in quality and testing. That said, I have found many ways for testers to deliver valuable information and services to the project team, and each of these ways has its strong points and its weaknesses. The processes in this book might differ from what you're doing now. In some cases you'll decide, based on the success of your current processes, that you're doing a fine job already. In some cases, though, you may want to implement improvements. I'll discuss specific ways to do that, but two themes apply to process change throughout the book. First, only change what's broken when changing it will help. Process change for its own sake, or process change to perfect an already-good process, often doesn't help the test team or the organization. Indeed, such efforts can prove a dangerous distraction from what's truly important. Second, change is often easiest when done in steps wherever possible. Change should be made as painless as possible. All the processes in the book were developed through incremental change as I realized that a better way of doing things would significantly increase the value my team could add,and fine-tuned my processes to achieve that. The processes in this book aren't pie-in-the-sky theory, but rather grew out of my experiences on the ground as a practicing tester, test lead, and test manager. Your experiences and your challenges will differ from mine, so be sure to adapt my processes- or completely reinvent your own- rather than trying to put a saddle on a cow. Following good processes can liberate you from the rote aspects of certain tasks, allowing you to focus on the fun, the fascinating, and the creative. When the processes you've adopted no longer solve the critical problems, when they need to evolve as your situations change, when they get in the way, then it's time to rethink how you do what you do. The processes I discuss here are lightweight checklists (things I want to remember to do), not bureaucratic regulations (things I have to do because someone told me to). I hope that this book will start you thinking about the following questions: How do we do our testing jobs every day and on every test project as best as we possibly can? How do we de-institutionalize our knowledge of how we do what we do? Even though we have varied experiences, is there a commonality of practices that we can share for critical testing processes that determine our success? This book will give you a compendium of proven testing processes to help jump-start the most critical testing process of all, the thinking process." Click Here to Buy "Critical Testing Processes: Plan, Prepare, Perform, Perfect"!
By Rex Black Click Here to Buy "Pragmatic Software Testing"!
Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit By Tom and Mary Poppendieck From the book description: "In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental lean principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 thinking tools that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment." Click Here to Buy "Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit"! Lean Software Strategies: Proven Techniques for Managers and Developers By Peter Middleton and James Sutton From the Book Description: "Lean production, which has radically benefited traditional manufacturing, can greatly improve the software industry with similar methods and results. This transformation is possible because the same overarching principles that apply in other industries work equally well in software development. The software industry follows the same industrial concepts of production as those applied in manufacturing; however, the software industry perceives itself as being fundamentally different and has largely ignored what other industries have gained through the application of lean techniques." Click Here to Buy "Lean Software Strategies: Proven Techniques for Managers and Developers"!
Software Metrics General Metrics Books Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering From the Back Cover: "Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering is the definitive book on this essential topic of software development. Comprehensive in scope with extensive industry examples, it shows how to measure software quality and use measurements to improve the software development process. Four major categories of quality metrics and models are addressed: quality management, software reliability and projection, complexity, and customer view. In addition, the book discusses the fundamentals of measurement theory, specific quality metrics and tools, and methods for applying metrics to the software development process. New chapters bring coverage of critical topics, including:
In addition to the excellent balance of theory, techniques, and examples, this book is highly instructive and practical, covering one of the most important topics in software development- quality engineering." Click Here to Buy "Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering"! Practical Software Measurement: Objective Information for Decision Makers "PSM provides you with a way to realize the significant benefits of a software measurement program, while understanding and avoiding the risks involved with a "blind jump." You'll find this book a worthwhile starting point for your future software measurement initiatives, as well as a source of continuing guidance as you chart your way through the sea of complex opportunities ahead." -Barry Boehm, from the Foreword From the Back Cover: "Objective, meaningful, and quantifiable measurement is critical to the successful development of today's complex software systems. Supported by the U.S. Department of Defense and a rapidly increasing number of commercial practitioners, Practical Software Measurement (PSM) is a process for designing and implementing a project-based software measurement program. PSM provides essential information on scheduling, resource allocation, and technological performance. It enables software managers and developers to make decisions that will affect the project's outcome positively." This book is the official, definitive guide to PSM written by the leaders of the PSM development initiative. It describes the principles and practices for developing, operating, and continuously improving your organization's measurement program. It uses real-world examples to illustrate practical solutions and specific measurement techniques. This book examines the foundations of a software measurement program in depth, defining and prioritizing information needs, developing a project-specific information model, tailoring a process model to integrate measurement activities, and analyzing and understanding the results. Specific topics include:
In addition, this book includes numerous detailed examples of measurement constructs typically applied to software projects, as well as two comprehensive case studies that illustrate the implementation of a measurement program in different types of projects. With this book you will have the understanding and information you need to realize the significant benefits of PSM as well as a guide for a long-term, organization-wide measurement program. PSM is founded on the contributions and collaboration of key practitioners in the software measurement field. The initiative was established in 1994 by John McGarry and is currently managed by Cheryl Jones. Both are civilians employed by the U.S. Army. David Card is an internationally known software measurement expert, and is with the Software Productivity Consortium. Beth Layman, Dr. Elizabeth Clark, Joseph Dean, and Fred Hall have been primary contributors to PSM since its inception. " Click Here to Buy "Practical Software Measurement: Objective Information for Decision Makers"!
Software Metrics: Best Practices for Successful IT Management From the Author: " 'Software Metrics: Best Practices for Successful Management' will give you a comprehensive introduction to the subject area. Beyond this, the book provides a wealth of useful case study information and gives a wide range of useful, practical measurement models, based on years of experience across many industry sectors, that you can start to use today. This book is unique in that, as well as giving the technical, subject background necessary to make software metrics work, it presents a full lifecycle for measurement program development and implementation. This lifecycle breaks the whole, complicated problem of getting a measurement program up and running into manageable phases; each one defined and described in detail with easy to follow descriptions." Click Here to Buy "Software Metrics: Best Practices for Successful IT Management"!
Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-Wide Program by Robert B. Grady, Deborah L. Caswell From the Forward by Tom DeMarco: "...Fortunately, there are at least a few examples of sensible approaches to measurement, and one of the most compelling of these is described in Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-Wide Program. This book tells of one company's need for a measurable, controllable software process and of the very professional effort the company mounted to meet that need. If the effort had been less ambitious, this book would have ended its days as a long memo, of interest only within the authors' company. But the approach was so broad and so multi-faceted that it covers most of the ground necessary to set up such a program in any company. It tells of the metrics chosen, the tools used to collect and digest them, the selling job to get people involved, the forms, the training sequences, the documentation, the results and the costs." Click Here to Buy "Software Metrics: Establishing a Company-Wide Program"!
Software Metrics: A Guide to Planning, Analysis, and Application by C.R. Pandian From the Book Description: "This book simplifies software measurement and explains its value as a tool for decision-makers at software companies. The techniques presented in this book are derived from best practices. The ideas are field proven, down to earth, and straight forward, making it an invaluable resource for those striving for process improvement. This overview helps readers enrich their knowledge of measurements and analysis, best practices, and demonstrates how ordinary analysis techniques can be applied to achieve extraordinary results. Easy-to-understand tools and techniques show how metrics create models that are indispensable to decision-making in the software industry." Click Here to Buy "Software Metrics: A Guide to Planning, Analysis, and Application"!
Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach by Norman Fenton and Shari Pfleeger "This book is arranged in three parts. Part I offers the reader a basic understanding of why and how we measure. It examines and explains the fundamentals of measurement, experimentation, and data collection and analysis. Part II explores software engineering measurement in greater detail, with comprehensive information about a range of specific metrics and their uses, illustrated by a wealth of examples and case studies. Part III provides a management perspective on software measurement, explaining how to plan a measurement program, what has been successful in other organizations, and how measurement can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of techniques and tools. The book also includes an annotated bibliography, a glossary, and answers to selected exercises from the main chapters. The book is designed to suite several audiences. It is structured as the primary text book for an academic or industrial course on software metrics and quality assurance. But it is also a useful supplement for any course in software engineering. Because of its breadth, the book is a major reference book for academics and practitioners, as it makes accessible important and interesting results that have appeared only in research oriented publications. Researchers in software metrics will find special interest in the material reporting new results, and in the extensive annotated bibliography of measurement related information. Finally, the book offers help to software managers and developers who are seeking guidance on establishing or expanding a software measurement program." Click Here to Buy "Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach"!
Best Practices in Software Measurement by Christof Ebert, Reiner Dumke, Manfred Bundschuh, and Andreas Schmietendorf From the web site: "The software business is challenging enough without having to contend with recurring errors. One way repeating errors can be avoided is through effective software measurement. In this volume, Ebert and his co-authors offer practical guidance built upon insight and experience. They detail knowledge and experiences about software measurement in an easily understood, hands-on presentation and explain such current standards as: ISO 15939 (the general measurement standard), ISO 19761 (the COSMIC Full Function Points standard), and CMMI (the Capability Maturity Model). Coverage also includes several case studies, from Global 100 companies such as Alcatel, Deutsche Telekom, and Siemens. This combination of methodologies and applications makes the book ideally suited for professionals in the software industry. Besides the many practical hints and checklists readers will also appreciate the large reference list, which includes links to metrics communities where project experiences are shared. Click Here to Buy "Best Practices in Software Measurement"!
Software Sizing, Estimation, and Risk Management: When Performance is Measured Performance Improves by Daniel Galorath and Michael Evans Illustrated with case studies, figures, and graphs, Managing Software Costs, Size, and Schedules explains software sizing metrics and other software estimation factors while examining leading trends and practices in software sizing technology. The authors discuss not only software sizing metrics but also the technology and complexity aspects of the software estimation process. They cover various estimation models and include topics such as return on investment, cost as an independent variable, and more. They also also focus on project management solutions through software sizing. This text provides a solid overview of the most widely used options and solutions when data needed for an estimate is limited. Click Here to Buy "Software Sizing, Estimation, and Risk Management: When Performance is Measured Performance Improves"!
Function Points Books Function Point Analysis: Measurement Practices for Successful Software Projects by David Garmus and David Herron From the Back Cover: "Function Point Analysis: Measurement Practices for Successful Software Projects" is a comprehensive presentation of the principles of function point analysis and a guide to its effective use in managing the development and deployment of software. Written for both information technology practitioners and managers, it describes how to use this proven but underutilized software sizing metric to achieve successful software projects." Click Here to Buy "Function Point Analysis: Measurement Practices for Successful Software Projects"!
Measuring the Software Process: A Practical Guide to Functional Measurements by David Garmus and David Herron Function point counting is one of the fastest growing software management techniques used in the software industry today. This book shows how to successfully execute the function point counting methodology, based on the current rules and guidelines set forth by the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG). Covers software measurement and the application of the function point methodology, the specific rules and guidelines of the function point methodology, and function point uses and benefits. For programmers and software development managers." Click Here to Buy "Measuring the Software Process: A Practical Guide to Functional Measurements"!
Benchmarking Books Software Assessments, Benchmarks, and Best Practices From the Back Cover: "Billions of dollars are wasted each year on IT software projects that are developed and either released late or never used. In light of recent large-scale errors, the methods, tools, and practices used for software development have become the subject of significant study and analysis. One qualitative method for analysis is software assessment, which explores the methodologies used by businesses for software development. Another method of analysis is software benchmarking, which collects quantitative data on such topics as schedules and costs. Renowned author Capers Jones draws on his extensive experience in economic analysis to present a useful combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches to software development analysis. When assessment data and benchmarking data are analyzed jointly, it is possible to show how specific tools and practices impact the effectiveness of an organization's development efforts. The result is a clearer, bigger picture--a roadmap that allows an organization to identify areas for improvement in its development efforts. With this book as your guide, you will learn: To combine assessments and benchmarking for optimal software analysis Click Here to Buy "Software Assessments, Benchmarks, and Best Practices"!
From the ISBG: "The Benchmark Release 8" analyses the factors that affect software project duration as well as the quality & productivity of software projects, whether in terms of development, enhancement, or package customisation. The information in this book will help you with:
The content of this book is based on the information that the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group has gathered on 2,027 software projects from around the world. In this Benchmark release you can find answers to the following questions:
Click Here to Buy "The Benchmark Release 8"!
The Psychology of Computer Programming By Gerald Weinberg Finding the chapters strikingly relevant to today's issues in programming, Gerald M. Weinberg adds new insights and highlights the similarities and differences between now and then. Using a conversational style that invites the reader to join him, Weinberg reunites with some of his most insightful writings on the human side of software engineering. Topics include egoless programming, intelligence, psychological measurement, personality factors, motivation, training, social problems on large projects, problem-solving ability, programming language design, team formation, the programming environment, and much more." Click Here to Buy "The Psychology of Computer Programming"!
Software Estimation Estimating Software Costs: Bringing Realism to Estimation The second edition of Estimating Software Costs continues the pioneering methods of the initial edition in using the power of function point metrics for software cost, schedule, and quality estimation. The second edition adds current topics such as Agile estimation and other modern development practices. The book supports the basic fact that software estimation must include more than coding. The book describes activity-based estimation starting with requirements and including architecture, design, coding (including situations where more than one language are used), inspections, static analysis, testing, user documentation, and project management. The book also discusses how to incorporate creeping user requirements, which occur at rates of more than 1% per calendar month. After software is deployed, estimates must also include maintenance, enhancements, and customer support for sometimes as long as 25 years. The book discusses both manual estimation methods and also the use of a number of commercial software estimation tools such as COCOMO II, KnowledgePlan, SEER, and SLIM. The book notes that analysis of the accuracy of commercial software estimation tools indicates that for large applications, they tend to provide better results than manual estimation methods. For small applications below 1,000 function points in size, manual and automated estimation methods are almost equal. But above 10,000 function points manual methods tend to be optimistic and understate both costs and schedules. The book also points out a surprising fact: the accuracy of software cost estimating tools is usually better than the accuracy of historical data, which tends to "leak" topics such as unpaid overtime and project management.
IT Governance Governance Books IT Governance: How Top Performers Manage IT Decision Rights for Superior Results by Jeanne Ross and Peter Weill "Seventy percent of all IT projects fail- and scores of books have attempted to help firms measure and manage IT systems and processes better in order to turn this figure around In this book, IT experts Peter D. Weill and Jeanne W. Ross argue that the real reason IT fails to deliver value is that companies have no formal system in place for guiding and monitoring IT decisions. Their research shows that firms with explicit IT governance systems have twice the profit of firms with poor governance, given the same strategic objectives. Just as corporate governance systems aim to ensure quality decisions about corporate assets, the authors show, companies need IT governance systems to ensure that IT investments are made wisely and effectively." Click Here to Read More or to Buy the Book!
Risk Management Books Assessment and Control of Software Risks by Capers Jones From the back cover: "This handbook summarizes more than 50 of the major problems of building and maintaining software projects, and outlines the prevention/control 'therapies' available. Considers in depth the software-related risks in the domains of methodologies, tools, organization structures, skills and specialization, client relations, and sociological issues. For software managers and software professionals in software engineering, software quality assurance, and related software areas." Click Here to Buy "Assessment and Control of Software Risks"!
Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister Greater risk brings greater reward, especially in software development. A company that runs away from risk will soon find itself lagging behind its more adventurous competition. By ignoring the threat of negative outcomes— in the name of positive thinking or a can-do attitude— software managers drive their organizations into the ground. In Waltzing with Bears, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister—the best-selling authors of Peopleware— show readers how to identify and embrace worthwhile risks. Developers are then set free to push the limits. The authors present the benefits of risk management, including that it: makes aggressive risk-taking possible; protects management from getting blindsided; provides minimum-cost downside protection; reveals invisible transfers of responsibility and; isolates the failure of a subproject. Readers are armed with strategies for confronting the most common risks that software projects face: schedule flaws; requirements inflation; turnover; specification breakdown and under-performance. Waltzing with Bears will help you mitigate the risks— before they turn into project-killing problems. Risks are out there— and they should be there— but there is a way to manage them. Click Here to Buy "Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects"!
Risk Management in Software Development Projects From the Publisher: "Very few software projects are completed on time, on budget, and to their original specification causing the global IT software industry to lose billions each year in project overruns and reworking software. Research supports that projects usually fail because of management mistakes rather than technical mistakes. "Risk Management in Software Development Projects" focuses on what the practitioner needs to know about risk in the pursuit of delivering software projects. "Risk Management in Software Development Projects" will help all practicing IT Project Managers and IT Managers understand: * Key components of the risk management process * Current processes and best practices for software risk identification * Techniques of risk analysis * Risk Planning * Management processes and developing such processes for various organizations" Click Here to Buy "Risk Management in Software Development Projects"!
Object Lessons: Lessons Learned from Commercial Object-Oriented Application Development From the Book Description: "Object Lessons encourages software professionals to build high-quality, innovative software products with less risk by avoiding the mistakes that plague the industry. With the wisdom acquired from over a decade of experience building commercial software products using objects, Love addresses the questions that both technical leaders and managers face as they venture into this important new area of software development. Focusing on fundamental issues and trends as opposed to specific products and services, Love supplies valuable insight into the development and management of large-scale commercial software. Object Lessons will prove to be an indispensable reference guide for all professionals in the field of object-oriented software engineering."
By Karl Wiegers Zero in on key project-initiation tasks — and build a solid foundation for successful software development. In this concise guide, critically-acclaimed author Karl E. Wiegers fills a void in project management literature by focusing on the activities that are essential — but often overlooked — for launching any project. Drawing on his extensive experience, Karl shares lessons learned, proven practices, and tools for getting your project off to the right start — and steering it to ultimate success. Click Here to Buy "Practical Project Initiation"!
Knowledge Management Books Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce From the Production Description: "This is a solution-oriented book to address one of the most pressing management problems of the coming years: How do organizations transfer the critical expertise and experience of their employees before that knowledge walks out the door? It begins by outlining the broad issues and providing tools for developing a knowledge-retention strategy and function. It then goes on to outline best practices for retaining knowledge, including knowledge transfer practices, using technology to enable knowledge retention, retaining older workers and retirees, and outsourcing lost capabilities." Click Here to Buy "Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce"!
Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations by Thomas A. Stewart From the Product Description: "Knowledge has become the most important factor in economic life. It is the chief ingredient of what we buy and sell, the raw material with which we work. Intellectual capital- not natural resources, machinery, or even financial capital- has become the one indispensable asset of corporations. Intellectual Capital is a groundbreaking book, visionary in scope and practical in applications, that offers powerful new ways of looking at what companies do and how to lead them. It is the first book to show how to turn the untapped, unmapped knowledge of an organization into its greatest competitive weapon." Click Here to Buy "Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations"!
Project Management Books Quality Software Project Management by Robert T. Futrell, Donald F. Shafer, Linda I. Shafer From the Preface: "Quality Software Project Management was written by and for software practitioners who need a hands-on guide to the non-deterministic but leading-edge task of managing software development projects. The book takes its overall outline from the successful Software Project Management (SWPM) certification program at The University of Texas at Austin's Software Quality Institute, a division of the College of Engineering's Center for Lifelong Engineering Education (CLEE). If you are a professor or instructor of software engineering, this text will suffice for a semester-long course in software engineering plus project management. The bodies of knowledge for project management, software engineering, and software quality, recognized by several professional societies (IEEE, SEI, PMI, ASQ) are presented in a clear and explanatory style." Click Here to Buy "Quality Software Project Management"!
Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd Edition by Tom DeMarco From amazon: "Peopleware asserts that most software development projects fail because of failures within the team running them. This strikingly clear, direct book is written for software development team leaders and managers, but it's filled with enough common sense wisdom to appeal to anyone working in technology. Authors Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister include plenty of illustrative, often amusing anecdotes; their writing is light, conversational, and filled with equal portions of humor and wisdom, and there is a refreshing absence of "new age" terms and multistep programs. The advice is presented straightforwardly and ranges from simple issues of prioritization to complex ways of engendering harmony and productivity in your team. Peopleware is a short read that delivers more than many books on the subject twice its size." Click Here to Buy "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 2nd Edition"!
Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell From the book description: "Author Steve McConnell draws on solid research and a career's worth of hard-won experience to map the surest path to your goal. 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, this book draws on a vast store of techniques to create an elegantly simplified and reliable framework for project management success." Click Here to Buy "Software Project Survival Guide"!
Death March, 2nd Edition Click Here to Buy "Death March, 2nd Edition"!
The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service Based Project Leadership Click Here to Buy "The Strategic Project Leader: Mastering Service Based Project Leadership"!
Balanced Scorecard Books Implementing the IT Balanced Scorecard The goals of an IT balanced scorecard include the alignment of IT plans with business objectives, the establishment of measures of IT effectiveness, the directing of employee efforts toward IT objectives, the improved performance of technology, and the achievement of balanced results across stakeholder groups. CIOs, CTOs, and other technical managers can achieve these goals by considering multiple perspectives, long- and short-term objectives, and how the IT scorecard is linked to other scorecards throughout their organizations. Implementing the IT Balanced Scorecard lays the groundwork for implementing the scorecard approach, and successfully integrating it with corporate strategy. This volume thoroughly explains the concept of the scorecard framework from both the corporate and IT perspectives. It provides examples, case histories, and current research for critical issues such as performance measurement and management, continuous process improvement, benchmarking, metrics selection, and people management. The book also discusses how to integrate these issues with the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard: customer, business processes, learning, and innovation and financial. About the Author: Jessica Keyes is the President of New Art Technologies, Inc, a technology and management consultancy. She is currently a professor of computer science at Fairleigh Dickinson University's graduate center, as well as the University of Phoenix. A noted columnist and correspondent with over 200 articles published, Keyes is the author of 19 books, including Auerbach's Software Engineering Handbook and Software Configuration Management. Click Here to Buy "Implementing the IT Balanced Scorecard"! ITIL Books IT Service Management: An Introduction From the Book Description: "In recent years, IT service management has developed into a field in its own right, with organizations now so dependent on the automation of large parts of their business processes that the quality of IT services and the synchronization of these services with the needs of the organization are essential to their survival. IT Service Management provides a thorough introduction to the field, as well as an introduction to the books in the IT infrastructure library, and preparation materials for the Foundation Certificate exam on IT service management. Based on the latest edition of the ITIL books on service support and service delivery, the text encourages discussion and comparison of best practices based on IT managers' own experiences." About the Author: Jan van Bon, one of the founders of the IT Service Management Forum in the Netherlands, is chief editor of ITSMF publications, and currently manages the only Internet portal on IT Service Management, ITSM PORTAL. Click Here to Buy "IT Service Management: An Introduction"!
Miscellaneous Software Runaways: Monumental Software Disasters From Amazon: "In this book software pioneer Robert Glass shows exactly what went wrong in 16 colossal software disasters - and how to keep disasters from happening to you. Considers the typical responses to potential runaways, including risk management and issue management." Click Here to Buy "Software Runaways: Monumental Software Disasters"! Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering From the Back Cover: "The practice of building software is a 'new kid on the block' technology. Though it may not seem this way for those who have been in the field for most of their careers, in the overall scheme of professions, software builders are relative 'newbies.' In the short history of the software field, a lot of facts have been identified, and a lot of fallacies promulgated. Those facts and fallacies are what this book is about. There's a problem with those facts - and, as you might imagine, those fallacies. Many of these fundamentally important facts are learned by a software engineer, but over the short lifespan of the software field, all too many of them have been forgotten. While reading Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, you may experience moments of "Oh, yes, I had forgotten that," alongside some "Is that really true?" thoughts. The author of this book doesn't shy away from controversy. In fact, each of the facts and fallacies is accompanied by a discussion of whatever controversy envelops it. You may find yourself agreeing with a lot of the facts and fallacies, yet emotionally disturbed by a few of them! Whether you agree or disagree, you will learn why the author has been called 'the premier curmudgeon of software practice.' " Click Here to Buy "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering"! The Business of Software: What Every Manager, Programmer, and Entrepreneur Must Know to Thrive and Survive in Good Times and Bad From the Book Description: "The world's leading expert on the global software industry and coauthor of the bestseller Microsoft Secrets reveals the inner workings of software giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Netscape and shows what it takes to create, develop, and manage a successful company - in good times and bad - in the most fiercely competitive business in the world. In the $600 billion software industry it is the business, not the technology, that determines success or failure. This fact - one that thousands of once glamorous start-ups have unhappily discovered for themselves - is the well-documented conclusion of this enormously readable and revealing new book by Michael Cusumano, based on nearly twenty years of research and consulting with software producers around the world. Cusumano builds on dozens of personal experiences and case studies to show how issues of strategy and organization are irrevocably linked with those of managing the technology and demonstrates that a thorough understanding of these issues is vital to success. At the heart of the book Cusumano poses seven questions that underpin a three-pronged management framework. He argues that companies must adopt one of three basic business models: become a products company at one end of the strategic spectrum, a services company at the other end, or a hybrid solutions company in between. The author describes the characteristics of the different models, evaluates their strengths and weaknesses, and shows how each is more or less appropriate for different stages in the evolution of a business as well as in good versus bad economic times. Readers will also find invaluable Cusumano's treatment of software development issues ranging from architecture and teams to project management and testing, as well as two chapters devoted to what it takes to create a successful software start-up. Highlights include eight fundamental guidelines for evaluating potential software winners and Cusumano's probing analysis, based on firsthand knowledge, of ten start-ups that have met with varying degrees of success. The Business of Software is timely essential reading for managers, programmers, entrepreneurs, and others who follow the global software industry."
Software Quality Assurance: From Theory to Implementation by Daniel Galin From the book description: "Software quality assurance (SQA) systems are vital for software developers in the software and the electronics industries as well as for information systems divisions in organizations. This book, based on many years of consulting and teaching experience, is designed to serve three audiences: students at universities and colleges, participants in vocational training courses in the industry and practitioners/professionals. Each chapter will conclude with commonly raised questions, problems, short case studies, and topics for discussion. The methodology to be presented in the book conforms with the requirements of ISO 9000 standards (ISO 9001 Quality Management and Quality Assurance Standard and of ISO 9000-3 Guidelines for the Application of ISO 9001 to the Development, Supply, Installation and Maintenance of Computer Software). The topics that will be covered will conform with the requirements of most vocational training programs (e.g.. the American Society for Quality's training program for Certified Software Quality Engineers). The book is designed to include in its appendices a collection of useful templates and checklists containing items of great interest to practitioners and students, and is accompanied with an Instructor's Guide containing lesson planning guidelines, guides for conducting discussions, OHPs and test material. Click Here to Buy "Software Quality Assurance: From Theory to Implementation"!
Fundamental Concepts for the Software Quality Engineer by Taz Daughtrey From the book description: "'Fundamental Concepts for the Software Quality Engineer' is a collection of the best articles on software quality, taken from the professional journal 'The Software Quality Professional' and recent International Conferences on Software Quality, and compiled by Taz Daughtrey, editor-in-chief of the Software Quality Professional. This book offers insights from over thirty leaders in industry and academia with practical real-world experience, and each article in this book has been peer-reviewed for technical content, assuring that the content is accurate and time-worthy. Each section of the book is arranged to follow the ASQ Certified Software Quality Engineer Body of Knowledge, giving the book a logical organization, and making this an outstanding overview of the content in the ASQ CSQE exam." Click Here to Buy "Fundamental Concepts for the Software Quality Engineer"!
Software Conflict 2.0: The Art and Science of Software Engineering by Robert L. Glass From the back cover: "Software Conflict 2.0: The Art and Science of Software Engineering updates and expands a neglected classic in the field. The nearly 60 essays in this book—always easily digestible, often profound, and never too serious—are the work of pioneer Robert L. Glass, 50 year software veteran, and author or editor of more than 25 books, including the recent bestseller Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering. As loyal Glass readers have come to expect, Software Conflict 2.0 takes up large themes and important questions, never shying away from controversy. Robert Glass has a unique perspective, owing partly to his longevity in the field, partly to his breadth and depth of experience as a practitioner, and partly to his experiences on multiple continents crossing back and forth between the worlds of the university and the professional programming shop. No matter what unique corner of the software engineering world you call home- be it aerospace or e-commerce- whether you are a researcher, hardcore coder, consultant, or manager, Software Conflict 2.0 tackles questions and conflicts that you will recognize. Bob Glass's wide and deep perspective on the art and science of software engineering will widen and deepen your own perspective." Click Here to Read More or to Buy the Book!
Value Based Software Engineering Editors: Stefan Biffl, Aybuke Aurum, Barry Boehm, Hakan Erdogmus, Paul Grunbacher From Amazon: "The IT community has always struggled with questions concerning the value of an organization's investment in software and hardware. It is the goal of value-based software engineering (VBSE) to develop models and measures of value which are of use for managers, developers and users as they make tradeoff decisions between, for example, quality and cost or functionality and schedule - such decisions must be economically feasible and comprehensible to the stakeholders with differing value perspectives. VBSE has its roots in work on software engineering economics, pioneered by Barry Boehm in the early 1980s. However, the emergence of a wider scope that defines VBSE is more recent. VBSE extends the merely technical ISO software engineering definition with elements not only from economics, but also from cognitive science, finance, management science, behavioural sciences, and decision sciences, giving rise to a truly multi-disciplinary framework. Biffl and his co-editors invited leading researchers and structured their contributions into three parts, following an introduction into the area by Boehm himself. They first detail the foundations of VBSE, followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods and techniques. The third part demonstrates the benefits of VBSE through concrete examples and case studies. This book deviates from the more anecdotal style of many management-oriented software engineering books and so appeals particularly to all readers who are interested in solid foundations for high-level aspects of software engineering decision making, i.e. to product or project managers driven by economics and to software engineering researchers and students." Click Here to Read More or to Buy the Book!
Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide By Karl Wiegers From the Back Cover: "Concise, readable, and pragmatic, Peer Reviews in Software walks you through the peer review process and gives you the specific methods and techniques you need to help ensure a quality software release. Comprehensively covering both formal and informal processes, the book describes various peer review methods and offers advice on their appropriate use under a variety of circumstances. This book focuses on - but is not limited to - the technique of inspection. This is the most formal, rigorous, and effective type of peer review. The various stages of inspection - including planning, individual preparation, conducting inspection meetings, and follow-up - are discussed in detail. Click Here to Buy "Peer Reviews in Software: A Practical Guide"! Applied Software Measurement: Global Analysis of Productivity and Quality 3rd edition; McGraw Hill; 2008 Since the first edition in 1991 Applied Software Measurement has become a standard resource for showing U.S. and international productivity and quality rates expressed in terms of function point metrics. The number of projects examined has risen from about 6,000 in the first edition to almost 13,000 in the third edition. This book discusses the need for software measurement to show the actual details of each project. Overall results are not sufficient so it is important to measure 25 standard development activities starting with requirements and also including architecture, internal and external design, coding, static analysis, inspections, as many as 12 kinds of testing, project management, and user documents. Maintenance and enhancement measurements are also included. Because more time and effort is devoted to finding and fixing bugs than anything else, the book includes extensive data on quality measurements. Also for many large applications the cost of producing more than 90 kinds of paper document totals to more than the cost of the code itself. The book contains extensive data on the costs and effort for dozens of kinds of documents such as use cases, user stories, user manuals, HELP text, architecture, and other kinds of non-code materials. Applied Software Measurement has been considered accurate enough to be cited in dozens of lawsuits as a standard industry resource for showing both productivity and quality averages and ranges. Click Here to Buy "Applied Software Measurement: Global Analysis of Productivity and Quality"!
1st edition; McGraw Hill; November 2009 This book adopts a novel approach among software engineering books. It includes quantitative data that shows the results of software engineering methods and practices such as Agile development, team software process (TSP), waterfall development, the various levels of the capability maturity model, and many others. There are many good software engineering books available that describe how to perform software engineering methods, but no other books available include data on the productivity and quality levels that result from using common software engineering methods. The book uses "normal" practices of waterfall development and level 1 of the capability maturity model as the basis of comparison. It then shows how other methods improve upon these normal methods. As with the author's other books, this book is unusually complete in that it covers a complete life cycle from the first day of requirements all the way through development and continues for more than 25 years of maintenance and enhancement. The book asserts that since development is only a small percentage of total lifecycle costs, software engineering best practices are needed during the maintenance cycle as well as the development cycle. More than 100 best practices are discussed. These include many technical best practices for handling requirements, design, coding, and defect removal. In addition a number of sociological best practices are also discussed, such as those dealing with downsizing and layoffs in the face of the recession. The main theme of the book is that quality control is the weak link in software engineering. Methods that emphasize quality tend to have better results than methods that don't. The importance of quality is directly proportional to application size. The larger the system, the more important quality control becomes. | |
