Review of Software Engineering, Vol. 2: The Supporting Processes (Paperback)

This book is a mandatory reading for those who is going to take IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Developer (CSDP) test. Really it is nothing else but really well chosen collection of articles on various software engineering subjects. This book could be an excellent if not its low quality printing format which makes it hard to read. Mine got dirty on sides and all covered with pencil marks - not all books on my bookshelf received such VIP treatment :-)

Product Description
This second volume on software engineering processes includes reprinted and newly authored papers that describe the supporting life cycle processes in a manner that can prepare individuals to take the IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Development Professional examination. Volume 2 details the eight supporting life cycle processes that developers need to employ and execute in the engineering of software products. This required support plays an integral part and has a distinct purpose that affects the overall success and quality of the software project.

The eight supporting processes covered in this guide include the documentation, configuration management, quality assurance, verification, validation, joint review, audit, and problem resolution. In addition, this tutorial covers the four processes of the organizational life cycle. These are used to establish and implement an underlying structure made up of associated life cycle processes and personnel that will continuously improve upon the structure and process of the project. These organizational processes are management, infrastructure, improvement, and training.

Each chapter in this book starts by introducing the subject, supporting papers, and standards. The backbone for this publication is IEEE/EIA Standard 12207-1997, Standard for Information Technology - Software Life Cycle Processes.

From the Back Cover
This second volume on software engineering processes includes reprinted and newly authored papers that describe the supporting life cycle processes that can prepare individuals to take the IEEE Computer Society Certified Software Development Professional examination. Volume 2 details the eight supporting life cycle processes that developers need to employ and execute in the engineering of software products. This required support plays an integral part and has a distinct purpose that affects the overall success and quality of the software project.

The eight supporting processes covered in this include the documentation, configuration management, quality assurance, verification, validation, joint review, audit, and problem resolution. In addition, this tutorial covers the four processes of the organizational life cycle. These are used to establish and implement an underlying structure made up of associated life cycle processes and personnel that will continuously improve upon the structure and process of the project. These organizational processes are management, infrastructure, improvement, and training.

Each chapter in this book starts by introducing the subject, supporting papers, and standards. The backbone for this publication is IEEE/EIA Standard 12207-1997, Standard for Information Technology-Software Life Cycle Processes.

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Review of Software Engineering (Practitioners) (Paperback)

This book accululates the classic works of the accepted authorities in the field of Software Engineering. As a senior consultant for government and industry for software productivity improvement, I continuously refer to and recommend this book to my clients and co-workers. This book should be required reading for every computer science, MIS professional.Thank you for the effort it took to bring this all together.

Product Description
This first edition of the popular tutorial, Software Engineering, describes the current state of the practice of software engineering. This book begins with an overview of current issues and in particular the engineering of large complex systems. Its collection of landmark papers goes on to describe the problems that occur in developing software, and presents the concepts for system engineering of software intensive systems and of engineering software products as the solution to the "software crisis."

The text illustrates the phases of the software development life cycle: requirements, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. Furthermore, it discusses the current practices in requirements and design, and defines software development methodologies, including a special emphasis on object-oriented tools and formal methods. The book also covers programming activities as they affect software engineering, details verification and validation throughout the software life cycle, and discusses software quality assurance, configuration management, and standards. In addition, the book covers project management and risk management concerns, and discusses the various life cycle process models including the spiral and incremental models.

From the Back Cover
This first edition of the popular tutorial, Software Engineering, describes the current state of the practice of software engineering. This book begins with an overview of current issues and in particular the engineering of large complex systems. Its collection of landmark papers goes on to describe the problems that occur in developing software, and presents the concepts for system engineering of software intensive systems and of engineering software products as the solution to the "software crisis."

The text illustrates the phases of the software development life cycle: requirements, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance. Furthermore, it discusses the current practices in requirements and design, and defines software development methodologies, including a special emphasis on object-oriented tools and formal methods. The book also covers programming activities as they affect software engineering, details verification and validation throughout the software life cycle, and discusses software quality assurance, configuration management, and standards. In addition, the book covers project management and risk management concerns, and discusses the various life cycle process models including the spiral and incremental models.

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Review of Elements of Software Process Assessment & Improvement (Practitioners) (Paperback)

Khaled's book provided some good information when it was published but is now outdated as ISO 15504 (called SPICE in the book) has been extensively updated. Two new books on the topic area have recently been published through Springer: Process Assessment and ISO/IEC 15504 - A Reference Book, and Process Assessment and Improvement - A practical guide for managers, quality professionals and assessors. I would recommend readers to look to these books as providing the latest information and real practical implementation guidance.

Product Description
Elements of Software Process Assessment and Improvement reviews current assessment practices, experiences, and new research trends in software process improvement. The newly revised chapters are expanded from articles that appeared in SPN, The Software Process Newsletter of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Software Engineering (TCSE).

This book describes in detail the process improvement cycle, including diagnosing an organization, establishing a business case, changing elements within a process, and evaluating the impact of these changes. These elements are divided into four parts providing a comprehensive view of the software process improvement field. The first part describes contemporary models that are used to evaluate an organization's processes and capabilities. The next covers the business case for assessment and improvement by providing ample evidence that demonstrates possible improvements as well as evidence of assessment reliability. Part three provides application guidance covering critical success factors including tools and techniques. The final portion covers important and exciting developments that enhance process improvement tools and the reader's understanding of organizational processes in practice.

These four elements answer the needs of individuals involved in software process improvement as well as those involved in basic and applied research. Elements of Software Process Assessment and Improvement is an invaluable source of practical information for software process professionals.

From the Back Cover
Elements of Software Process Assessment and Improvement reviews current assessment practices, experiences, and new research trends in software process improvement. Revised chapters expanded from articles in The Software Process Newsletter of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Council on Software Engineering, describe the improvement cycle in detail: from diagnosing an organization, establishing a business case, and changing elements within a process to final evaluation.

This book's thorough examination of contemporary models evaluates an organization's processes and capabilities, covers the business argument for assessment and improvement, and illustrates expected improvements and assessment reliability methods. Additional information includes application guidelines covering critical success factors including tools and techniques and important developments that enhance the reader's understanding of organizational processes in practice.

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Review of Software Process Improvement (Paperback)

With exceptions that I've noted below this is an in-depth examination of standards, initiatives and methods for software process improvement (SPI) and software process assessment (SPA).

The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of which contains two or more papers written by top experts in the field, including Mark Paulk (of CMM fame), Watts S. Humphrey (creator of PSP and TSP, and prolific author of software engineering process papers), Robert B. Grady (author of three standard references on metrics), and others who key players, but are not as widely known outside of the SPI and SPA community.

Chapter 1 covers software process assessment with an article by Paulk that surveys the more common models for SPI and SPA, and a reprint of Sarah Sheard's excellent article from CrossTalk Magazine titled "The Frameworks Quagmire".Chapter 2 contains three articles on the SW-CMM, which seems to be the centerpiece of this book.Chapter 3, "Other Approaches to Software Process Assessment" contains four articles that add balance by covering non-CMM approaches that are in common use, especially in Europe (Bootstrap).I especially liked the article by David N. Card titled "Sorting out Six Sigma and the CMM", which combines two hot topics.One of the exceptions that I cited at the beginning of this review is the article on Trillium, which in my opinion has been superseded by TL 9000 in the telecommunications industry.

The three articles in Chapter 4 (Software Process Improvement: How To Do It) address common concerns and barriers to any SPI initiative, and each add well thought out ideas, especially Sandra McGill's "Overcoming Resistance to Standard Processes, or, Herding Cats", and William Florac's "Statistically Managing the Software Process".

Watts Humphrey's Personal and Team Software Processes, and CMMI are the key topics in Chapter 5, which covers developments inspired by the SW-CMM.All of Chapter 6's Software Product Evaluation articles were my favorites from among the collection in this book, and I particularly liked Jørgen Bøegh's "Quality Evaluation of Software Products" and Geoff Dromey's "A Model for Software Product Quality" because they go to the heart of key issues in both product line engineering challenges and user acceptance testing.

Chapter 7, ISO 9000 Series and TickIT, is the second exception that I previously noted.Much has changed in ISO 9000 with the 2000 standard, which renders this entire chapter moot in my opinion.I also thought the five articles in Chapter 8, The SPICE Project, would have been a better fit in Chapter 3. The same goes for Chapter 9, Experiences of Software Process Assessment, which is nearly an extension of Chapter 8, and is closely related to Chapter 3.

Two other favorite chapters are 10 (Software Process Improvement for Small Organizations) and 11 (Benefits of Software Process Improvement).Chapter 10's three articles dispell any notion that SPI is only feasible for large organizations, and the three articles in Chapter 11 focus on the benefits of SPI, especially Herb Krasner's article titled "Accumulating the Body of Evidence for the Payoff of Software Process Improvement". I also liked the final chapter, which covers software processes in general, including an excellent article on modeling. I felt that this chapter should have been at the beginning of the book instead of the end.

Overall, this is a book for those of us who are nearly religious about SPI; but is not a good introductory text.It's main value will be to IT consultants who specialize in either SPI or SPA (or both), and who need to be familiar with the mainstream standards and approaches.

Product Description
The creation of quality software on time and within budget has been a major problem facing the software industry for several decades. Consideration of software development and maintenance as an engineering discipline to control the developmental process can help alleviate these obstacles. This new book focuses on the best practices for software process improvement (SPI) and related international standards providing a valuable guide and reference.

The text is a collection of original and republished papers providing a significant survey on the use of SPI and software process assessment (SPA) as practiced by companies such as Lockheed Martin, Siemens, and Hewlett Packard. Among the important features of the book are chapters on software process evaluation, how to best perform SPI, ISO 9000 and TickIT-an alternative approach to SPA, as well as the latest information on the CMM integration project. The text also provides vivid descriptions on the most important international and national standards for SPI, in particular ISO 9001, ISO 9000-3, ISO/IEC 9126. ISO/IEC 15504, ISO/IEC 12207.

Software Process Improvement benefits software managers who want to learn about the requirements and effects of SPI, software process staff who need to understand the mechanisms of SPA and SPI, software developers who are affected by SPI and need to know how to apply it, and college students who want to understand the various methods of SPA and SPI.

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Review of Software Management (Practitioners) (Paperback)

First, if you're looking for a book on managing software projects, this is not it. It is a very difficult subject to learn from a book. In fact, large organizations typically have their own project management practices, and have classes to teach their PM's.

Project Management is difficult to learn on your own, and is a hard topic to cover academically. This book can be used in others ways. For example, as a reference for experienced PM's; it can confirm notions of practices, or be referenced for very narrow topics, as software estimations.

Some of the articles are old, and may be out of date, and may be used anecdotally.

This book contains facsimiles of articles ranging from HBR to the highly technical, and a broad range of topics from personnel, to organization, to management, to technical. I found it interesting, but not very useful in terms of practice.

Product Description
This Seventh Edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to know to be successful on the job. The text provides pointers and approaches to deal with the issues, challenges, and experiences that shape their thoughts and performance. To accomplish its goals, the volume explores recent advances in dissimilar fields such as management theory, acquisition management, globalization, knowledge management, licensing, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, subcontract management, and technology transfer.

Software Management provides software managers at all levels of the organization with the information they need to know to develop their software engineering management strategies for now and the future. The book provides insight into management tools and techniques that work in practice. It also provides sufficient instructional materials to serve as a text for a course in software management.

This new edition achieves a balance between theory and practical experience. Reifer systematically addresses the skills, knowledge, and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively.

This book contains original articles by leaders in the software management field written specifically for this tutorial, as well as a collection of applicable reprints. About forty percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for the tutorial.

Contents:
* Introduction
* Life Cycle Models
* Process Improvement
* Project Management
* Planning Fundamentals
* Software Estimating
* Organizing for Success
* Staffing Essentials
* Direction Advice
* Visibility and Control
* Software Risk Management
* Metrics and Measurement
* Acquisition Management
* Emerging Management Topics

"The challenges faced by software project managers are the gap between what the customers can envision and the reality on the ground and how to deal with the risks associated with this gap in delivering a product that meets requirements on time and schedule at the target costs. This tutorial hits the mark by providing project managers, practitioners, and educators with source materials on how project managers can effectively deal with this risk."
-Dr. Kenneth E. Nidiffer, Systems & Software Consortium, Inc.

"The volume has evolved into a solid set of foundation works for anyone trying to practice software management in a world that is increasingly dependent on software release quality, timeliness, and productivity."
-Walker Royce, Vice President, IBM Software Services-Rational

From the Back Cover
This Seventh Edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to know to be successful on the job. The text provides pointers and approaches to deal with the issues, challenges, and experiences that shape their thoughts and performance. To accomplish its goals, the volume explores recent advances in dissimilar fields such as management theory, acquisition management, globalization, knowledge management, licensing, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, subcontract management, and technology transfer.

Software Management provides software managers at all levels of the organization with the information they need to know to develop their software engineering management strategies for now and the future. The book provides insight into management tools and techniques that work in practice. It also provides sufficient instructional materials to serve as a text for a course in software management.

This new edition achieves a balance between theory and practical experience. Reifer systematically addresses the skills, knowledge, and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively.

This book contains original articles by leaders in the software management field written specifically for this tutorial, as well as a collection of applicable reprints. About forty percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for the tutorial.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Life Cycle Models
• Process Improvement
• Project Management
• Planning Fundamentals
• Software Estimating
• Organizing for Success
• Staffing Essentials
• Direction Advice
• Visibility and Control
• Software Risk Management
• Metrics and Measurement
• Acquisition Management
• Emerging Management Topics

"The challenges faced by software project managers are the gap between what the customers can envision and the reality on the ground and how to deal with the risks associated with this gap in delivering a product that meets requirements on time and schedule at the target costs. This tutorial hits the mark by providing project managers, practitioners, and educators with source materials on how project managers can effectively deal with this risk."
-Dr. Kenneth E. Nidiffer, Systems & Software Consortium, Inc.

"The volume has evolved into a solid set of foundation works for anyone trying to practice software management in a world that is increasingly dependent on software release quality, timeliness, and productivity."
-Walker Royce, Vice President, IBM Software Services-Rational

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Review of Software Management, 6th Edition (Paperback)

This collection of IEEE and ACM papers written by an all star case of industry experts is showing its age in many areas.For example Barry Boehm's "A Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement", while valid for high-risk projects that push the technical envelope, is too risk-adverse for rapid or incremental development projects that are in increasing use.

However, some papers that you may be tempted to reject out-of-hand, such as TRW's Ada Process Model for Incremental Development of Large Software Systems is actually worth reading for organizations that have committed to the Rational Unified Process.

Overall, the range of papers covers every aspect of software engineering project management.The applicability of the papers collected in this book to contemporary practices is uneven.Some practices are either thoroughly documented and accepted best practices (the entire section of papers on project management), or are transitioning to newer models (the material on the CMM).On the other hand, some papers in this collection are gems and make this book worthwhile despite its age (planning and estimation papers).

One final note - the layout and design of this book could be greatly improved.Despite the age and some of the shortcomings I noted this is still a worthwhile resource for software engineering professionals who are working in a CMM Level 2 or above organization.

Product Description
This sixth edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to be successful. The text provides pointers to the current issues, challenges and experiences that shape their jobs. It explores recent advances in such dissimilar fields as management theory, distance education, knowledge management, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, and technology transfer.

Software Management, Sixth Edition provides software executives and corporate officers with the knowledge they need to develop their software engineering management strategies for the future. It also gives the software project manager insight into the tools and techniques that they can use to improve their ability to deliver high quality software products on time and within budget obligations. The book also provides sufficient instructional material to serve as a text for a course on software management.

Reifer's goal is to achieve a balance between theory and practical experience. He systematically addresses the skills, knowledge and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively.

This book contains fourteen original articles by leaders in the field specifically written for this sixth edition, as well as a collection of reprints. About 40 percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for this volume. Only about half of the papers from the previous edition appear in this revision.

From the Back Cover
This sixth edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to be successful. The text provides pointers to the current issues, challenges and experiences that shape their jobs. It explores recent advances in such dissimilar fields as management theory, distance education, knowledge management, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, and technology transfer.

Software Management, Sixth Edition provides software executives and corporate officers with the knowledge they need to develop their software engineering management strategies for the future. It also gives the software project manager insight into the tools and techniques that they can use to improve their ability to deliver high quality software products on time and within budget obligations. The book also provides sufficient instructional material to serve as a text for a course on software management.

Reifer's new edition achieves a balance between theory and practical experience. He systematically addresses the skills, knowledge and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively.

This book contains fourteen original articles by leaders in the field specifically written for this sixth edition, as well as its collection of reprints. About 40 percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for this volume. Only about half of the papers from the previous edition appear in this revision.

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Review of Practical Support for CMMI-SW Software Project Documentation Using IEEE Software Engineering Standards (Paperback)

I am in a very large organization that is making all of our projects (at the least) CMMI Maturity level-3 compliant. We have Level-5 software factories (offshore centers), some Level-4 programs/projects, and 1,000s of Level-3 compliant (internally appraised) projects.
However, we have "custom" project management document templates that still rely tremendously on the author's (project manager) previous experience writing these references or LUCK (b/c a lower level grunt is actually writing the document!).
The IEEE project management documents (project management approach, risk and issue management plan, change management plan, etc.) are not perfect, but they ARE based on hundreds of project experiences and years or experience and input from 100s of IEEE member organizations.
This book provides the table of contents from the IEEE documents but Not 100% of the text (you have to spend a few $100usd to be a IEEE member to get the actual templates).
BUT, if you are starting a SEPG (software engineering process group) or Quality Management System (QMS) team dont waste time trying to create your templates from scratch. Step-1, get this book and create the ourline of the documents, step-2 harvest the best examples from your projects and insert the best sample sections into the templates.
Remember that 60-80% of these documents are essentially "boiler-plate" that apply to most of your projects, or projects of a certain type.
I RECOMEND that you fill in your templates with as much of the "boilerplate" as possible and make these management documents as close to "fill in the blank" as possible.Using the IEEE standards as a baseline for the structure and content will help you significantly.

CAVEATS: IEEE standards, like way too many I.T. documents, includes the Glossary section in the beginning of the document. Although this may be helpful to define key words before they are encountered, I find the least obtrusive location for the Glossary is as an Appendix. This is not only a common location for documents in many many other fields, it encourages the glossary to be as small or large as it needs to be, rather than drowning the reader with terms they may already know in the beginning of the document.
DITTO for large Tables and Diagrams. I suggest they are located either in the Appendix or as a separate external file that is maintained separately (and is easily referenced by several documents - something dificult to do if they are buried in a single document).

Product Description
Software process definition, documentation, and improvement should be an integral part of every software engineering organization. This book addresses the specific documentation requirements in support of the CMMI-SW^® by providing detailed documentation guidance in the form of:

• Detailed organizational policy examples.
• An Integrated set of over 20 deployable document templates.
• Examples of over 50 common work products required in support of assessment activities.
• Examples of organizational delineation of process documentation.

This book provides a set of IEEE Software Engineering Standards-based templates that support the documentation required for all activities associated with software development projects. The goal is to provide practical support for individuals responsible for the development and documentation of software processes and procedures. The objective is to present the reader with an integrated set of documents that support the requirements of the CMMI-SW^® Levels 2 and 3. This book is meant to both complement and extend the information provided in Jumpstart CMM^®/CMMI^® Software Process Improvement Using IEEE Software Engineering Standards. Jumpstart provides a detailed mapping of both the CMM^® and the CMMI-SW^® to the IEEE standards set and provides a logical basis for the material contained within this text.

It is hoped that this book will provide specific support for organizations pursuing software process definition and improvement. For organizations that do not wish to pursue CMMI^® accreditation, this document will show how the application of IEEE Standards can facilitate the development of sound software engineering practices.It also comes with a CD-Rom.

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