Author: Watts S. Humphrey (with William R. Thomas)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (www.informit.com/seiseries)
Published: March 2010
ISBN 13: 978-0-321-71153-3
ISBN 10: 0-321-71153-X
Format: Soft cover, 288 pages
Prices:
Book: $31.49
eBook: $9.80 (formats available: PDF; EPUB)
LeftInsights into IT Management
The successful management of any decent sized software project involves much more than just the management of the technical and technological aspects of the project – as important as those aspects may be. It is also essential that you know how to manage both yourself and your team, and then, of course, there's your boss to worry about as well! Insights into, and advice about all the different project management skills required are presented in the book "Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself."
In his professional IT life, the book's author, Watts S. Humphrey, clocked up 27 years IT experience with IBM, and during that time, held the positions of Director of Programming and Vice President of Technical Development. At the time of writing this particular book, Humphrey was a Senior Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute (SEI), where he was the founder of that organization's "Software Process Program." And in 2005, he was the recipient of the "National Medal of Technology", awarded by the President of the United States, in acknowledgement of Humphrey being one of America's most outstanding innovators. Humphrey also currently holds five U.S. patents. "Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself" is a book in the "SEI Series in Software Engineering", a joint effort between the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and the publisher Addison-Wesley – a full list of titles in the series is available at www.informit.com/sei
One of Humphrey's motivations for writing "Reflections on Management" is to help IT professionals to overcome what he refers to as the "Software Quality Challenge." As he explains in the opening section of his book, "today, many of the systems on which our lives and livelihoods depend are run by software. Whether we fly in airplanes, file taxes, or wear pacemakers, our safety and well-being depend on software. With each system enhancement, the size and complexity of these systems increase, as does the likelihood of serious problems. Defects in video games, reservation systems, or accounting programs may be inconvenient, but software defects in aircraft, automobiles, air traffic control systems, nuclear power plants, and weapons systems can be dangerous."
The content making up "Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself" has been organized into four major parts with a total of eight chapters in all, plus an epilogue and an appendix. Each of the parts corresponds to a specific section of the book's title, namely:
• Part I: Managing Your Projects. The two chapters in this opening part of the book are respectively devoted to first, committing to high quality, and then second, understanding the planning that is involved in high quality projects. The obvious question to ask here is: "What is software quality?" Humphrey's response is that "the quality of a software product must be defined in terms that are meaningful to the product's users. Thus a product that provides the capabilities that are most important to its users is a quality product." And on the topic of planning, Humphrey points out that "the hardest time to make a plan is when you need it most. When teams are under heavy pressure to commit, they must dig in their heels and insist on making a plan."
• Part II Managing Your Teams. In the three chapters that make up this part of the book, Humphrey discusses, in depth, the following aspects of IT teams: 1) the elements that must come together for a team to be regarded as effective; 2) how to become an effective team member yourself (and to help others do the same); and 3) the art and science of leading and coaching a team to success.
• Part III: Managing Your Boss. This part of the book only consists of a single chapter but what an important chapter it is! And I suspect that this is the chapter that most people will first turn to once they start browsing the book's Table of Contents. To be successful in managing your boss, Humphrey stresses it is imperative you know how to negotiate your projects and how to defend your plans. The other trap to watch out for is who does the work. As Humphrey says, "most new managers have trouble accepting the fact that their job is to lead the people who do the work, not to do the work themselves. While most team leaders who have been developers see nothing wrong with actually doing much of the work themselves, this is rarely a good idea and it can even damage your ability to be an effective leader." Humphrey warns that "even if you are the most skilled designer on the team, your job is to lead the team, not to be the lead designer. While you may have to provide detailed guidance on the design work, the best leaders show their team members how to do their jobs but do not step in and do the work themselves."
• Part IV: Managing Yourself. Humphrey suggests there are two skills you need to develop in order to successfully manage yourself as a team leader. They are the ability to take control of your work, coupled with a fierce desire to learn how to lead more effectively than you are presently doing. He urges team leaders to become transformational leaders. He explains that "as a leader you not only set the team's pace, but you also establish the attitude. If you want this team to win, they must act like winners. And for them to act like winners, you must act like a winner and also treat them as winners. It all starts with you."
Note: for any readers of the book wanting more information about specific topics, each chapter concludes with a listing of sources, and in addition, the book also contains a short bibliography.
In the book's epilogue, Humphrey tackles the topic that "software engineers are the pioneers of knowledge work", while the book's appendix contains a brief overview of three different process methodologies referred to throughout the book:
• The Personal Software Process (PSP).
• The Team Software Process (TSP).
• The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) for Software and the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI).
By the time you have finished reading "Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself", here are just some of the many topics raised and discussed by Humphrey you will have been exposed to:
• Why quality can be likened to a journey that never ends.
• The eight steps necessary for consistently creating and delivering quality software.
• The four most common reasons that teams fail.
• Knowing when to ask for help, as well as being aware of the appropriate times to offer help to others. Humphrey reports that "it is surprising how often software engineers struggle alone to solve a difficult problem."
• Dealing with inadequate resources.
• What you need to know and do to get all members of your team involved.
• What to do when the project you are involved in is "doomed to fail."
• What you can do to improve the quality of your own work.
• How to achieve overall success through the use of short term goals.
• The reasons that many projects strike problems in the early stages.
• Avoiding becoming a victim. Controversially, Humphrey states that "essentially all software developers act like victims." He adds that "these smart and capable people seem willing to spend their lives behaving like losers. The principal reason is that nobody ever showed them how to break out of their victim trap."
• How to avoid becoming a poor team leader.
In conclusion, do yourself a favor and read "Reflections on Management: How to Manage Your Software Projects, Your Teams, Your Boss, and Yourself" in its entirety. It is full of practical, down-to earth advice that can help you to successfully negotiate a pathway through all the trials associated with leading, and participating in IT projects. Watts S. Humphrey, the book's author, has more than 60 years of professional experience on which to draw from. And he has done a marvelous job in being able to convey that experience in this very readable book that he has written.