Applied Software Project Management

Chapter 1. Introduction

Say a project that started out as a small, stopgap utility has turned into a raging behemoth, sucking seemingly unlimited time from your programmers. Or the president of your company announced that your project will be done this week, even though you know that it still has an enormous number of bugs. Or your team delivered the software, only to have users complain that an entire feature is missing. Or every time the team fixes a bug, they seem to uncover a dozen more—including ones that you know were fixed six months ago. If you are a software project manager, you may recognize these problems (or similar ones) from your own career.

Many software organizations have problems delivering quality software that is finished on time and meets the users' needs. Luckily, most software project problems have surprisingly few root causes, and these causes are well understood. Solutions to these problems have been discovered, explained, and tested in thousands of software organizations around the world. These solutions are generally straightforward and easy to implement. However, they are not always intuitive to people who do not understand project management, and that makes them difficult to introduce. The goal of this book is to teach you about these solutions and help you integrate them into your own organization.

But this book is about more than just solutions to typical project problems. Every single technique, practice, and tool also helps establish an environment ...