Hacker's Guide to Project Management

Describes the process of software development, how projects can fail and how to avoid those failures. This book outlines the skills of a good project manager, and provides practical advice on how to gain and deploy those skills. It explains what must be done, and what must be avoided and suggests what to do if things start to go wrong.

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Managing a software development project is a complex process. There are lots of deliverables to produce, standards and procedures to observe, plans and budgets to meet, and different people to manage. Project management doesn't just start and end with designing and building the system. Once you've specified, designed and built (or bought) the system it still needs to be properly tested, documented and settled into the live environment. This can seem like a maze to the inexperienced project manager, or even to the experienced project manager unused to a particular environment.

A Hacker's Guide to Project Management acts as a guide through this maze. It's aimed specifically at those managing a project or leading a team for the first time, but it will also help more experienced managers who are either new to software development, or dealing with a new part of the software life-cycle.

This book:

describes the process of software development, how projects can fail and how to avoid those failures

outlines the key skills of a good project manager, and provides practical advice on how to gain and deploy those skills

takes the reader step-by-step through the main stages of the project, explaining what must be done, and what must be avoided at each stage

suggests what to do if things start to go wrong!

The book will also be useful to designers and architects, describing important design techniques, and discussing the important discipline of Software Architecture.

This new edition:

has been fully revised and updated to reflect current best practices in software development

includes a range of different life-cycle models and new design techniques

now uses the Unified Modelling Language throughout