expectations organizations specification retrospectives

books:

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition)

85 reviews
Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1999

Classic and still fantastic
This book is one of the books I still recommend to people who are managing software development teams. The ideas in this book are about many of the topics that "agile" teams speak about now, and there are some key ideas that make sense for any team of professionals who have to work together. I still use memorable phrases from this book such as "brain time vs. body time", and "bring back the ...

The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management

56 reviews
Tom DeMarco

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1997

Should have read it years ago.
If every boss, owner, manager, teacher, parent, partner, head of state, & clergy read this we might have a better world. It'a fun read.

Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully

41 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1986

Beyond platitudes
This book is gentler "The prince" and "How to win friends..." for consultants. Ever since I've started consulting, I've wondered why my clients were the way they were. This book explained it all. Yes, Virginia, clients may not want your "value" all the time. Save yourself some money on therapy and buy this book.

Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews

11 reviews
Norman L. Kerth

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2001

Excellent guide to improving organizational performance
"Project Retrospectives" is one of the best written, best edited, most nicely presented, and most useful software books I've ever read. Norm Kerth presents a convincing argument for the value of taking the time to study past projects and learn from them. He then presents a rich tool kit of techniques for helping a project team explore what actually happened, what went well, what caused problems, ...

Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method

16 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2005

Much more than technique
Other reviewers have done a fine job explaining what this book is about, and extolling its many virtues, so I'll keep my comments brief. Jerry Weinberg's "fieldstone" method is a powerful concept and technique, but what stands out most about this book to me is the way in which, between the lines, Weinberg addresses the *emotional* difficulty of writing, and the way in which things like buried ...

Are Your Lights On?: How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is

26 reviews
Donald C. Gause; Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1990

Great Insight on Problem Solving
The book is about problem solving. The authors are famous for their great insight in computer programming and problem solving. Rather than stating the 10 Commandments of problem solving, the authors took a long but more effective way. They tell a story in each section to end up with a sparkling insight. The book is very unique in the way of presenting the idea and insight - An illustration in ...

Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach

12 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1986

Excellent Book For New And Future Leaders
I have gotten more out of this book than any other that I have read. It is ideal for current software developers who think they might be interested in leadership. It begins with some basic ideas about leadership and how they will relate to the rest of the book. The real meat of the book is in sections 2, 3, and 4 which are dedicated to Innovation, Motivation, and Organization - the three key ...

Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design

27 reviews
Donald C. Gause, Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1989

My favorite book on the art of requirements gathering
"The document is nothing; the documenting is everything." This quote encompasses the most important concept I learned from this terrific book on the art of gathering requirements. Most customers seem to focus exclusively on the size and quality of the requirements document itself. What Gause & Weinberg are saying here is that the process of developing the requirements and the building of a ...

Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects

24 reviews
Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2003

A necessity for *developers*
Read this unsystematic and occasionally glib book (I concede this point to other reviewers) and you will suddenly realize that you, your colleagues in development, your technical leads, and your CEO have probably all been lying to yourselves and to each other about every single "milestone". Risk analysis is not merely done badly most of the time. It's usually not done at all. I learned enough ...

General Principles of Systems Design

3 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg, Daniela Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1988

One of the most infuential books I have ever read
An outstanding follow up to the first book Weinberg wrote(An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, 1975). Anyone who considers themseleves a systems thinker must read this book! Whereas the first book attempts to answer the first question in the systems triumvirate, "Why do we see what we see?", this books tackles the next question, namely "Why do things stay the same?" As a marriage ...

Complete Systems Analysis: The Workbook, the Textbook, the Answers

2 reviews
James Robertson, Suzanne Robertson

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1998

Excellent Bring You Up To Date Book
For persons needing a well written platform independent non-dogmatic textbook and workbook to bring them up to date on structured systems analysis, this book is excellent. Includes a brief explaination of how to transition to the design process (including Object Oriented Design (OOD) as well as old fashioned 3rd and 4th generation languages), but refers you to other books for design (and project ...

Just Enough Requirements Management: Where Software Development Meets Marketing

8 reviews
Alan Mark Davis

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2005

Must reading to make requirements triage (prioritization) really work
Al Davis has done it again, with a highly practical and useable book on the ongoing process of effectively managing changing requirements. Davis is an expert in requirements, bringing to light his vast expertise in many domains including systems engineering on real (very large) projects as well as commercial software. He is perhaps THE expert on requirements triage. This book provides ...

Strategies for Real-Time System Specification

6 reviews
Derek J. Hatley, Imtiaz A. Pirbhai

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1988

Reference versus text book
I have been using this book for the past 6 years at the Naval Postgraduate school to teach Systems Engineers about the HIPO formal methodology methods. It is the best available. It is strange that the students all give it a low rating as a textbook; but later after graduating call or E-mail that it is the best reference book they have. A lot of programs that were in trouble of failure have ...

Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations

13 reviews
Robert D. Austin

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1996

I use this as a text in my software metrics courses
I teach courses on software metrics and do some research on software-related measurement. As Austin points out in his book, many of the well-known advocates of metrics in the software community are blind to the issues that he raises, or they dismiss the issues as social science hooey that won't affect serious engineering. They are so, so wrong. This is a useful, readable book, that teaches hard ...

Managing Expectations

5 reviews
Naomi Karten

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1994

Learn how to communicate the good and the bad news
The key message of this book is that you must listen carefully to your customers and co-workers, hearing every word, but also the broad message. Many of the primary problems in the business-customer relationship are due to different definitions of commonly understood words, such as "regular", "extended", "timely" and even "month." Whole phrases are subject to different interpretations, and the ...

Quality Software Management, Vol. 3: Congruent Action

2 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1994

An incredibly useful book
This book focuses focuses on an issue of huge importance to software managers: how to respond appropriately to people (clients, bosses, team members) in difficult, emotionally charged situations. Weinberg uses simple but effective models to explain human behavior, and examples from the software engineering industry to put these models in contexts familiar to software developers. I first read ...

Hiring The Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets & Science Of Hiring Technical People

10 reviews
Johanna Rothman

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2004

This is the book I wish I'd had when I was a hiring manager.
If you want to increase your ability to attract and hire people who will help build the company while avoiding costly hiring mistakes, Johanna Rothman's book, Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds, can help. The book is full of detailed guidance on each step of the hiring process, from creating a hiring strategy to making the new hire's first day a great one. The book provides ...

An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition)

9 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2001

An excellent introduction...
Weinberg distills the essence from von Bertalanffy's classic and manages to present it in a very accessible fashion. The book has been out of print for quite a while so it is great to see a new edition. The message and information contained in here, although originally published in 1975, is now more relevant than ever. Weinberg covers many aspects of systems theory beginning with the main ...

Data Model Patterns: Conventions of Thought

21 reviews
David C. Hay

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 1995

From Starters to Main Course
Very satisfying reading experience. Starting off rudimentary and keying into a maturity withing 5 chapters - hats off to David. I am looking forward to his new book on meta data.

More Secrets of Consulting: The Consultant's Tool Kit

10 reviews
Gerald M. Weinberg

Dorset House Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2001

Weinberg, Again!
Developing MORE of your soft and thinking skills. This builds on the first book in this series and is the same caliber, class and application value as the first. More insight from a consultant/leader/teacher with years of experience. I classify this book and the first as wisdom that few will purchase, fewer will take the time to understand, and the gold that many people search for "as ...

search for books
expectations, organizations, problem-solving, retrospectives, specification

Impressum / about us