Here are three books I always recommend to people who ask for advice on how to do software project managment,
- The Mythical Man Month, Fred Brooks: Fred literally wrote the book on project management and while you might not recognise the hardware referred to in the book, everything else he wrote is a relevant today as it was 40 years ago.
- Rapid Development, Steve McConnell: Steve actually presages much of the Extreme Programming community in this seminal work on modern software project management. He taught me that convergence to a date was more important that hitting a date.
- Extreme Programming Explained : Embrace Change, Kent Beck: XP is probably one of the most important programming developments of the past ten years. Putting the customer at the centre of development is probably the most important precept.
I am coming to the end of Joel on Software and found it brilliant. A must read for everyone but probably more of an overview then the books above.
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other classic reads would be:
1) “Code Complete” by Steve McConnell
2) “The Dynamics of Software Development” by Jim McCarthy – the softer side of Softare project
management – I’ll always remember the “Dont Flip The Bozo Bit” phrase…..
3) Irish author and UCC gradudate Fergus O’Connell’s Silver Bullet series – interesting takes of Project Management drawing from the Movie production industry…
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I just read another book on Project Management unlike anything else I’ve read. Really!
“Critical Chain” by Eliyahu Goldratt
Its a business novel introducing Theory of Contraints into managing projects.
It’s a very easy read with insightful ideas that can be applied to many business challenges. I had read his previous books on Production, “The Goal” and “It’s Not Luck”
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