Good books on Managing Projects

[RBSTR]

Hi

I manage a team of 4 software developers.

Typically our projects are small plug-ins for business software we sell and take no longer than 3-4 days to deliver.

Occasionally we have larger projects that are developed over 2 months or so. Typically the end project is used by no more than 20 end users across one or 2 sites.

I have mixed successes in costing, planning and managing such projects

Can anyone recommend good books on best methods for costing, planning and managing such software projects.

Thanks

 

[xwb]

Try a search on Agile Project Management.

 

[Glenn9999]

You have to differentiate whether you are getting sales pitches rather than how-tos - I noticed many sales pitch books on Agile Project Management practices and very few on how to do it when I looked at the topic in Google...

Anyhow, one would be hard pressed to do better than the
Project Management Institute's Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge which covers basically everything you could ever want to know or need to know about Project Management as of the date of publication. I give the amazon link, but you might look at PMI's website to see if they have published anything newer than 2004.

As for some lighter and/or more focused reading, there are a whole bookshelf of books that people will suggest. The thumbnail sketch of the topic that I have experience with is Software Project Survival Guide.

Much depends on the specific topic at hand - if you're looking at program coding and management best practices, every programmer (not just managers) would do much worse than to find a copy of Code Complete. I found it very valuable to formalize some things I figured out via trial and error in practice, as well as clarify a few things.

Again much of the suggestion would depend on what you are looking to do exactly.

 

[chiph]

A good book I've read which may be applicable is Whil Hentzen's "The Software Developer's Guide"

http://www.amazon.com/Software-Developers-Guide-Whil-Hentzen/dp/193091900X

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
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[MasterRacker]

Steve McConnell, the author of Code Complete, also runs a software project management company. On their website, they have a set of document templates that can lead you right through the project:

http://www.construx.com/Page.aspx?hid=509

_____
Jeff
[small][purple]It's never too early to begin preparing for [/purple]International Talk Like a Pirate Day
"The software I buy sucks, The software I write sucks. It's time to give up and have a beer..." - Me[/small]

 

[matrixindicator]

I should recommand (I did not consult other books).

HEAD FIRST Software Development (its almost about planning, test driven developemt, ...).

HEAD FIRST PMP (I have the book but didn't read it already). This goes further then Software Development, I think its about risk management, budget ...)

http://www.headfirstlabs.com

or Oreilly or Amazon.

 

[LNBruno]

You could check out this forum as well:

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=731

< M!ke >
[small]Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?[/small]

 

[Craig0201]

I'll put in my twopenneth.....

My organisation is the owner of PRINCE2 and I know a few of the original developers. They would say that PRINCE2 is not a bureaucratic exercise but a best practice exercise that can be scaled according to your needs.

I've yet to see much in any other methodology that is not somewhere in PRINCE2. The skill with it is in using it appropriately.

C