Product Description

How to make sure your next important project isn't your last.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #170142 in Books
• Brand: Microsoft
• Published on: 1997-10-01
• Platform: No Operating System
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.32 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Essential & Brilliant
If anyone out there is managing an IT project and hasn't read this book stop now and go and buy and read this book. You will save yourself far more time than it will take you to read it.

This must be the only IT book I have read form cover to cover. I got through the whole book in a couple of days it gripped me like an novel. The book is just packed with practical advice on how to run a project. But its not just hints and tips but a whole approach - a survival mindset to get you through the project. If everyone followed the advice in this book very few IT projects would fail.

Want one example? Binary Milestones i.e. something is either done or it isn't none of this 'we are 90% done' any one who has worked on a real software project knows these sort statistics are meaningless.

Stop reading this and go and buy the book - by IT standards it is cheap and the best value for money you will ever get out of an IT book!

Excellent Project Management 'Guide'
Practical, insightful, and most important, readable. Should be required reading for anyone involved in the development of software. Not what I would say about most books taking on the subject of Software Project Management, but then, this is no ordinary book. I will recommend this to all of my clients, developers, QA personnel, and especially, project managers. Exactly what this industry needs, a concise guide to the best practices in software development.

The perfect addition to McConnell's trilogy
McConnell's released books on good construction practises, and good development practices. Now he finishes the circle with a book on good management practices. McConnell has a very good way of integrating the thoughts of many prominent industry gurus into a readible comprehensive format. His talent is to recognize the best ways that improve people as software workers. The thoughts and techniques from his previous work, Rapid Development, were excellent, and it is "the Software Project Survival Guide" that puts those techniques into concrete perspective. He concentrates on only a few of his published techniques, those that are most tried and true, but also provides a framework well suited to young and upcoming technical students hoping to become managers. (Like myself 8-D) A great companion to this book is Tom Demarco's "The Deadline", as it adds the human-element of managing projects that sometimes seems missing from McConnell's book. This is not to the detriment of McConnell's work, it is just that his approach is different. McConnell's books are readible, interesting, and are the _best_ comprehensive books on improving yourself as a software worker. He's the guru of the 90's.