For decades, the classic project-management challenge has been to produce software quicker with more features and less bugs. Software, however, has its revenge because scheduling it accurately and precisely is a highly inexact science. Even the best, seasoned estimators struggle at first attempt. This book by Steve McConnell, though written 30 years ago, gives communal sympathy towards development teams who can seemingly never meet a deadline. Further, he actually provides some answers on how to mitigate those human problems distracting from developing code quickly.
This book is not nearly as paradigm-shifting as McConnell’s Code Complete, but it does provide an overview of management scenarios that a tech lead or manager will encounter in their professional lifetime. Though the technologies change, the human side shifts more slowly. Many managers still don’t understand many details of what it takes to develop software, and this book provides strategies to engage in that dialogue.
In the past 30 years, some of the problems have been subsumed by other paradigm shifts, like agile development. The problems remain, but the language is different. In fact, I struggled to find his entire section on Best Practices relevant today since modern strategies use different terminologies to address the same problems. But for the most part, the identified problems present similarly today. It’s helpful to think through these classical situations – and the classical missteps attempting to address those situations.
Readers who always want “the latest and the greatest” out of a technology book will be disappointed, but those seeking relatively timeless wisdom out of a classic book will benefit. McConnell was one of the greatest software writers of his era, and this book hits home on the perpetual need for rapid software development. At over 600 pages, it’s more comprehensive, especially on the human side, than even more recent books addressing similar themes. It’s well worth a technological leader’s time to understand how to avoid pitfalls ahead of time in a software project.
Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
By Steve McConnell
Copyright (c) 1996
Microsoft Press
ISBN13 9781556159008
Page Count: 647
Genre: Software Engineering, Software Management
www.amazon.com