Winning with Software: An Executive Strategy

3Rational Management

In Chapter 1, I described the three principles of software management: recognizing that you are in the software business, making quality the first priority, and using motivated and disciplined people to do the work. Then, in Chapter 2, we reviewed five of the principal causes of project failure: unrealistic schedules, inappropriate staffing, disruptive requirements changes, poor-quality work, and believing in magic. Now, in this chapter, we discuss solutions to these problems. As H. L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem, there is a simple answer, and it’s wrong.” While there is no single solution to software’s multiple problems, there is an effective strategy. It concerns management style and the techniques for ...