A Hacker's Guide to Project Management - Contents

Sections in italics are new to the Second Edition, but a lot of the other sections have also been updated.

Introduction

• Should I Be Reading this Book?
• So What’s This All About?
• What Do You Assume I Know?
• Will You Tell Me About Short-Cuts?
• How Does this Book Relate to Structured Methods?
• What’s Changed in the Second Edition?
• Acknowledgements

Success and Failure

• Why Do Software Projects Fail?
• So How Do I Know If I’ve Succeeded?
• Prevention and Cure
• What Do I Have to Deliver?
• So How Do I Ensure Success?

The Art of Project Management

• What Does a Project Manager Do?
• What are the Key Skills of a Project Manager?
• How Do I Lead?
• What if People Make Mistakes?
• How Do I Build a Team?
• How Do I Make Sure the Team is Complete?
• How Do I Plan, Report and Communicate?
• How Do I Gain Management Approval and Confidence?
• How Expert Do I Have to Be?
• How Do I Spot Problems?
• Is Programming Important?
• What Do I Do?

The Development Life-Cycle

• What is the Development Life-Cycle?
• What is the Waterfall Life-Cycle?
• What is Missing from Most Waterfall Methods?
• How Do Iterative and Incremental Methods Work?
• How Does Rapid Application Development Work?
• What Can Go Wrong?
• How Do I Choose A Method?
• How Do I Use the Method?
• How do I Control Changes?
• What is the Role of Prototyping?
• How Should I Structure My Project?

Structuring the Development

• How do I Divide Up a Development?
• How Do I Split the Project into Phases/Iterations?
• What are My Options for Team Structure?
• What Jobs Must be Done?
• How Do I Structure Testing?
• OK, So What Do I Have to Do?

Planning and Estimating

• What are the Principles of Planning?
• How Do I Complete My Plan?
• How Do I Plan the Staffing of the Project?
• How Can I Present My Plan?
• How Do I Know I've Got The Estimates Correct?...
• Isn’t There a Better Way to Estimate Things?
• How Do I Resist Time and Budget Pressures?
• What is the "Testing Trap"?
• What Other Resources Do I Need?
• What Do I Do If I’m Not Meeting My Plan?
• So How Should I Create My Plan?

The Strategy

• What is the Role of A Strategy?
• How Do I Make a Business Case?
• How Do I Know What Quality is Required?
• What Else Do We Need to Decide?
• What is a Quality Plan?
• What Goes Into the Strategy Report?
• How Do I Control Communications with People?
• What Do I Deliver?

Analysis

• What Do They Need?
• How Do I Document Requirements Using Use Cases?
• How Does Thinking About Objects Help?
• How Do I Develop the Class Model?
• How Do I Describe the Business Processes?
• What are the “Architectural Requirements”?
• How and Why Should I Create a Data Model?
• How Do I Document the Requirements?
• Which Techniques Should I Use?
• What are the Risks During Strategy & Analysis?
• What Do I Deliver?

Procurement - Buying It In

• What’s A Typical Procurement Process?
• What Are the Different Types of Procurement?
• How Do I Choose the Right Supplier?
• How Do I Control the Supplier?
• What Else do I Need to Check?
• How Do I Work with an Unsigned Contract?
• What Do I Deliver?

Architecture and Design

• Why Do I Need A Design?
• What Are the Properties of a Good Design?
• What Does the Architect Do?
• What Goes Into the Design Report?
• How Does the Design Relate to the Analysis Model?
• How Do I Create a Good Design?
• Why Should I Use Patterns and AntiPatterns?
• What Are Component, Layer and Service Architectures?
• How Do I Make My System More Usable?
• How Do I Make My System More Flexible?
• How Do I Integrate My System With Others?
• What are the Risks During Design?
• What Do I Deliver?

Build, Document and Test

• How Do I Ensure the Code is Good?
• How Do I Do Good Testing?
• What About User Documentation?
• What is Configuration Management?
• Who is Responsible for Quality?
• What are the “Best Practices” in the Build Stage?
• What’s in the Project File?
• What Do I Deliver?

The Transition Into Use

• How Do I Move My System Into Production?
• How Do I Prepare the Users?
• So How Do I Manage This?
• How Do I Plan for Long-Term Support and Maintenance?
• What Are the Risks in the Transition Stage?
• How Do I Know When I’ve Finished?
• What Do We Deliver?

Production and Maintenance

• How Do I Manage a Maintenance Effort?
• What Are the Right Attitudes to Maintenance?
• What Happens When Someone Important Leaves?
• How Do Systems Die?

Success!