Death March: The Complete Software Developer's Guide to Surviving "Mission Impossible" Projects

Front Cover
Prentice Hall PTR, 1999 - Business & Economics - 218 pages
The complete software developer's guide to surviving projects that are "doomed to fail."

In the course of a career, practically every software developer and manager will encounter projects with outrageous staffing, scheduling, budgeting, or feature constraints: projects that seem destined to fail. In the wake of re-engineering, such "Death March" projects have become a way of life in many organizations. Surviving projects that are "doomed to fail" ! Negotiating the best deal up-front. Managing people and setting priorities. Choosing tools and technologies. When it's time to walk away.

Now, best-selling author Edward Yourdon brings his unique technology and management insights to the worst IS projects, showing how to maximize your chances of success--and, if nothing else, how to make sure your career survives them.

Yourdon walks step-by-step through the entire project life cycle, showing both managers and developers how to deal with the politics of "Death March" projects--and how to make the most of the available resources, including people, tools, processes, and technology.

Learn how to negotiate for the flexibility you need, how to set priorities that make sense--and when to simply walk away. Discover how to recognize the tell-tale signs of a "Death March" project--or an organization that breeds them.

If you've ever been asked to do the impossible, "Death March" is the book you've been waiting for.

Contents

Introduction
1
Politics
49
Negotiations
73
People in Death March Projects
99
Processes
131
Tools and Technology
175
Death March as a Way of Life
195
Copyright

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About the author (1999)

Edward Yourdon is an independent management consultant, author, and developer of the Yourdon Method of structured system analysis. He is publisher of American Programmer Magazine, and best-selling author of Time Bomb 2000 (Prentice Hall PTR).

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