Many (great) books were written on the topics of agile methodologies and classical project management. However, they all focused on their specific domain and didn’t present a birds-eye view of why some things work and others don’t. Software Project secrets wants to be a different kind of book – it intends to show where classic project management techniques fail and how agile methodologies can address the shortcomings. This sounds like a big goal – but can the book reach it?
The first part of George Stepanek’s book looks at classic ‘project management assumptions’ in the PMBOK, which is an American standard manual of project management. It then contrasts those assumptions with the realities of the software development business to show how, where and when they fail. A case study of a small software project that failed ends the first part of the book.
The book then continues to present an overview of Crystal, Extreme Programming and the RUP – these are three pretty interesting and popular agile methodologies. The methodologies get described in good detail, their core assumptions are put side-to-side with the assumptions of the PMBOK shown before.
After that, Software Project Secrets looks at methods for budgeting agile projects and how to make sure that they stay on track. Another case study closes the second part of the book – this time, the project shown in Part 1 is successful because of the use of agile methodologies.
The third part of the book contains a big literature reference, a glossary and a copy of the agile manifesto…
APress did a great job on this book’s paper quality and binding. There was no blotting with my Parker 45, and the hardcover has a pretty sturdy appearance. This is a book that will definitely survive in your suitcase…for a pretty long time. The text is written very well – easy to read and understand – no problems here.
Overall, Software Project Secrets is a very interesting book for all those who like the software project management thematic. While a bloody beginner probably won’t benefit much from reading it, a person having read books like The Art of Project Management and the Extreme Programming Pocket Book will probably enjoy the text very much. Last but not least, the three most important agile methods are explained here in a compact form…the price of 35$ is slightly high, but justified…
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