Software Project Survival Guide (Pro -- Best Practices)

Kevin O'Hannain - Dublin &L'don


Essential & Brilliant   June 22, 2001
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

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!


A dangerous book, if used in isolation!   May 13, 2001
12 out of 18 found this review helpful

I've been a fan of McConnell for a long time. However, if you are using this as a practical guide to improving or recovering projects, BEWARE!

There are two key lessons that I've learnt in recent years - neither of which McConnell covers here.

The first lesson is that you cannot solve a problem for someone else, if they don't perceive that there is a problem (or if they perceive that the problem they are trying to solve is different!).

The second lesson is that (just as you can't supplement someone elses motivation with your own) you cannot supplement someone elses thinking with your own.

What you can do, however, is to help someone else define/create a problem, faciliate their thinking processes, and help them solve their own problem.

This book is useful once you get to the third stage, but ignoring the first two is highly likely to produce a result that is not in your favour.

Thankfully, there is a solution. Before you try and put anything in this book into action, read Jerry Weinbergs' Quality Software Management. It's a series of four books (System Thinking, First Order Measurement, Congruent Action, and Anticipating Change), and I strongly suggest you read them in that order.


A breath of fresh air   September 12, 2000
suepitman@hotmail.com (Chepstow, Wales)
I've always regarded people who can read these types of books as a bit sad! I borrowed a copy from my company library on Friday and managed to read it, cover to cover, during the weekend - despite interruptions from my five year old! It held my attention as well as any of my favourite authors of fiction! The contents is practical, clear and instructive - I went back to work on Monday with a several pages of A4 full of useful processes and ideas all of which I have since successfully put into practice. I think the most important lesson I have learnt is that it is possible, when handed a seemingly impossible implementation, to "manage" the impossible into something possible! If you follow my meaning! Thank you Steve!