Book Review - Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art

Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art by Steve McConnell is a book that meets my definition of a good technical book.

In my opinion, Estimation is an underrated subject. A lack of understanding of this topic among team members (not just the PM) can negatively impact the success of the project. This is because the Project Manager has to draw on the judgement & experience of the software development team as well. This book is written for developers, leads, testers, and managers who need to create estimates occasionally as one of their many job responsibilities. It gently guides the reader through the esoteric art of software estimation with lots of practical real-world advice.

Within the 300+ pages of the book spread across 23 chapters, the author explains 32 Estimation techniques graded according by these factors of applicability:

1. What's estimated (Size, Effort, Schedule, Cost, Features) 
2. Size of project (Small, Medium, Large)
3. Development stage (Early, Middle, Late), 
4. Whether the development style is iterative, sequential, or both 
5. Accuracy possible (Low, Medium, High)

The well-researched content is interspersed with 118 tips, numerous facts drawn from other authoritative books on software estimation and interesting statistics. Tip #30 contains the mantra of estimation: Count if at all possible. Compute when you can't count. Use judgment alone only as a last resort. 

Tip #17 advices: Include time in your estimates for stated requirements, implied requirements, and nonfunctional requirements—that is, all requirements. Nothing can be built for free, and your estimates shouldn't imply that it can. He lists the nonfunctional requirements that also need to be taken care of -

1. Accuracy
2. Interoperability
3. Modifiability
4. Performance
5. Portability
6. Reliability
7. Responsiveness
8. Reusability
9. Scalability
10. Security
11. Survivability
12. Usability

As with his other books, the author sets clear expectations. He explicitly states where the estimation techniques mentioned in the book will not be useful -

This book is not about how to estimate the very largest projects—more than 1 million lines of code, or more than 100 staff years.

These techniques will not produce estimates that are accurate to within ±5%, but they will reduce estimation error to about 25% or less, which turns out to be about as useful as most projects need, anyway. 

He informs in the beginning that this book draws from both the art and science of software estimation, but its focus is on software estimation as an art. This book avoids deep math and emphasizes relatively simple practices. Steve McConnell plans to publish a companion volume in the future that will deal with the Science of Estimation and cover more mathematically intensive estimation approaches.

I feel this book is essential reading for anyone who is into software development & highly recommend it.

Related:

• 10 Deadly Sins of Software Estimation
• Book Review: Software Project Survival Guide

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Book Review: Al Jaffee's Mad Life: A Biography

Al Jaffee is a tireless satirist, inventor of the MAD magazine “fold-in” & my all-time favorite cartoonist. At 89, he is MAD magazine’s oldest & most prolific artist, having actively contributed to it for over five decades. His biography titled Al Jaffee's Mad Life tells the tragic story of this creator of incredibly funny cartoons and how this “master adapter” has surmounted overwhelming odds.

His childhood was short-lived as he had a neglectant mother (an ultra-orthodox Jew) & a caring but absent father. His mother uprooted him & his three brothers from the US & the twentieth century and moved them to their native country of Lithuania which was still in the nineteenth century in terms of development. His father’s career as a manager at a department store took a hit and progressively went from bad to worse after he had to transport his family back to the US not once but twice. Despite flitting between countries & cultures, Al adapted well to difficult & changing circumstances. The turning point in his life came in 1935 when his drawing talent secured him a place in a prestigious art school in New York. Due to family pressures, he had to turn paterfamilias but all did not go well for him, his father & three brothers.

Al is a survivor who has braved huge odds. Inspite of his personal challenges, he has been regaling comic lovers worldwide with his unique brand of satire.

To me, Jaffee’s style of biting satire & mostly “anti-adult” themes is the cartooning equivalent of British writer Saki’s short stories. The blurb on the book’s cover flap neatly summarizes Al’s achievement -

To date he has pickled three generations of American kids in the brine of satire, and continues to bring millions of childhoods to untimely ends with the knowledge that parents are hypocrites, teachers are dummies, politicians are liars, and life isn’t fair.

This biography is sensitively written by Mary-lou Weisman, a friend of Al Jaffee for thirty years. She touchingly covers the highs & lows of Al’s roller-coaster life. The book of 200+ pages has over 70 original illustrations by Al.

I highly recommend this book to those who love Al Jaffee’s phenomenal work in MAD magazine or have a professional interest in cartooning.

A relatively cheap way of checking Al Jaffee’s work over five decades is to get yourself (like I did) a DVD compilation of over 600 issues of MAD Magazines in digital format from 1952 to 2006. It is titled Absolutely MAD Magazine - 50+ Years & costs less than 30 bucks.

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Book Review: Learning jQuery 1.3

In a brief span of four years, jQuery has become one of the most popular JavaScript Frameworks. Among the many websites & organizations that have adopted it is Microsoft and we are going to see a lot more of jQuery being used in ASP.NET websites than earlier. I've been using jQuery on & off for more than a year now. I more than agree with jQuery's motto that you will start writing less code & doing more with this nifty JavaScript Framework. What's more, it's all cross-browser code!

The book Learning jQuery 1.3 is written by Jonathan Chaffer and Karl Swedberg. Both are members of the core jQuery team and John Resig, the creator of jQuery speaks glowingly about them in the foreword of the book. This book builds on the earlier edition which was one of the first books on jQuery. I've benefited from reading this book & recommend it to everyone working or starting to work with jQuery.

This book is a comprehensive guide for beginners & a handy reference for experienced developers. Web developers & designers with a fair knowledge of HTML, CSS & JavaScript can sink their teeth into this 400+ paged book & start coding in jQuery confidently after finishing the book.  Spread across 11 chapters, the book covers the basics of jQuery in the introductory chapters, goes progressively into complex topics and concludes with a chapter on developing your own Plug-ins. Like I keep doing, you will probably refer to the Appendices multiple times. The code is download-able from the book's homepage. There are a lot of tips, tricks & best practices in the book and learning about them is sure to make you the jQuery expert at office. Sample this -

..when we plan to use a jQuery object more than once, it's generally  a good idea to cache the selector by storing the resulting jQuery object in a variable as well.

Written in plain-English, the style is conversational & friendly. The book has numerous practical examples (like those for implementing pull quotes, headline rotator, image carousel, table sorting, filtering & pagination) that can be directly used at work. While elaborately explaining how a particular client-side feature can be built, the authors show where something could go wrong and this helps in understanding a concept better.

The authors provide sufficient background & context while getting into topics that may be intimidating to beginners. For instance, this explanation of the hide() and show() methods impressed me -

The .hide() method sets the inline style attribute of the matched set of elements to display:none. The smart part here is that it remembers the value of the display property—typically block or inline—before it was changed to none. Conversely, the .show() method restores the matched set of elements to whatever visible display property they had before display:none was applied.

One place where I remember missing the background though was in a snippet that used the rel attribute. I learnt from W3Schools that the rel attribute of the anchor tag is not really supported by any major browsers and it can take over a dozen possible values. This is a minor detail though & I'm probably nit-picking.

I wish the key features of jQuery 1.3 as well as critical differences from the older versions were highlighted. While it's no doubt good to use the latest version of jQuery, it would have been beneficial to those who have already used older versions to know how breaking changes can impact their code. For example, some folks may miss the fact that if you upgrade jQuery from 1.2 to 1.3, you also have to upgrade the jQuery UI Plugin suite that they may also be using from version 1.6 to 1.7. At a minimum, the Quick Reference at the end of the book could have briefly mentioned when something not in the original jQuery API was introduced or modified. I'm glad however that there is a Quick Reference as I had wished for while reading the first edition.

There is a sample chapter available online(PDF) that you can check to see if the book suits your tastes.

This review is based on the ebook version that I received from a PacktPub representative.

Also see:
My favorite jQuery plugins

180

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Book Review - CSharp for Sharp Kids

Using real-world analogies, Martin Dreyer does a great job of explaining the introductory concepts of C# & OOP to absolute beginners in the free E-Book C# for Sharp Kids. The 2.9 MB MSI file, containing the E-Book in MS Word format & code samples, can be downloaded from the Kid's Corner of MSDN's Beginner Developer Learning Center. The code samples are expected to run with Visual C# 2005 Express Edition but you can get it to work on a newer version of the Express Edition as well.

Although this text is targeted at young developers (aged between 12-16), it is equally good for folks of any age wanting to learn about programming with C#. Spread across 5 parts & about 165 pages, it is light-hearted & filled with meaningful cartoons. Here are a couple of samples -

Once readers finish the book, they will be able to build simple Console & Windows applications. It will also whet their appetite to know more about C#.

I highly recommend this book to those starting to learn programming with C#. What's more, it's free as well.

90

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Book Review: Head First PMP

I purchased Head First PMP after a PM friend recommended me that book as a good starter guide to taking the PMP certification. As he mentioned & others have vouched, no one book including this one can help you pass the exam. What this book does is that it makes learning Project Management concepts enjoyable. This was my first book in the Head First series. I liked the book's unusual, non-linear style (with things like notes in the margins) of presentation although the excessive use of goofy pictures put me off a bit. The tone throughout is very informal, friendly & conversational which makes the guide engaging.

The 42 processes which form the core of the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) Guide, 4th Edition and cross-cut 9 Knowledge Areas & 6 Process Groups are explained well. Processes grouped by Knowledge Area make up a chapter. Besides the 9 chapters focusing on the Knowledge Areas, there are 6 more which cover the preliminaries & practice tests with answers. Important points in them are reiterated & highlighted. 2 complete chapters including a Practice test are available for free download. You could check these out & see if the book suits you before you buy it.

On the negative side, there are some typos & errors that you would have to look out for. I found some of the examples in the book to be too unrealistic & contrived to be of practical benefit.

Summary: Whether or not you are taking the exam, I feel this is a good guide on Project Management to start with if you are an aspiring PM or one by circumstance.

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Book Review: Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step

Like cycling or swimming, Sharepoint is easy but you need help to get started. Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Step by Step lives up to it's title of being a good step by step guide. It walks you through the maze of options in WSS 3.0 by gently holding your hand & showing the way. The instructions are straight-forward & in plain English, like any good technical book should be.

The book is practical & engaging with it's hands-on exercises covering the basic features. The authors highlight important points & offer troubleshooting tips at appropriate places, such as this one -

You can save documents directly to a document library by specifying the HTTP location in place of the hard drive, such as http://wideworldimporters/SharedDocuments/. Only saved documents can be attached to list items as attachments.

This book answers all the HOWs of WSS but not the WHYs and for that you will need another resource. However, after finishing the 16 chapters of this roughly 500-paged book, you'll learn enough to get going on your own. I recommend this guide to beginners. Even after you finish reading it, it'll be a good reference to go back to while you are working on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Also see:
Free Sharepoint 2007 goodies on Microsoft e-Learning

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Book Review: The Engaging Web

Manning's MEAP (Manning Early Access Program) books allow early access to electronic version of the chapters as they are completed. Manning provided me with a review copy of a MEAP version of The Engaging Web by Gabe Zichermann & Christopher Cunningham. Being inquisitive about technologies & ideas related to the Web, I dived into the book intrigued by it's title. Having finished reading it, I'm now sold on the idea that the concepts which make Games popular can be applied to engage users of a website and contribute to achieving the site's goals.  The term Funware is used in the book to describe any application that integrates social game design theories or mechanics with software and services to increase stickiness, user engagement and revenues.

The design philosophy of Funware can basically be summarized as “every application and user interaction can be made more fun.” Through the systematic application of game design principles, fun can be embedded even within the most utilitarian applications.

The authors show examples of how real-life sites use Game mechanics without making us realize that we are engaging in a game (a characteristic of "Funware"). Although they don't mention StackOverflow, the hot technical Forum site that has got popular in a short span of time, I feel it qualifies as a good example of "Funware".

This book builds on the premise that the endearing & addictive qualities of Games can be extended to non-game contexts like Web applications; ranging from anything like consumer finance to booking corporate travel.

The first chapter shows how eBay in fact is a game in the way it induces us to play, win and compare our scores & ratings. It explains how basic game designs (frequent flyer, leaderboard, casino) can be "mashed up" with existing websites and applications. Chapter 2 discusses approaches to offering a game channel. Chapter 3 covers the topic of building websites that don’t just leverage game mechanics, but that are focused on games as a thematic or commercial enterprise. Chapter 4 dwells on principles of Funware and tactics to help you build your own fully integrated Funware applications. In Chapter 5, the authors pick an open source Ruby on Rails Forums application called Altered Beast & extend it by implementing Funware elements into it.

If you want to learn about how game design principles can be applied to a website to improve its viewership  & better engage its users, this book is for you.

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Book Review: Website Owner's Manual

Ever since the Internet took off in a big way towards the end of the last century, it has revolutionized the way we live & work. It is a great platform for selling ideas or products as it provides a level playing field to anyone in the world with Internet access that wishes to leverage the medium. It makes it irrelevant whether someone seeking an online presence is working from a garage or some remote corner of the world.

Successful websites have earned their owners unimaginable wealth; far outstripping what traditional companies have earned in decades. Websites that are frivolous & provided only short term value have perished. The dotcom bust of the last decade sunk the fortunes of website owners who took their users for granted with their short sighted strategies.

So what makes a successful website? Is building one an obscure art?

Paul Boag, a Web development veteran, answers these questions and shares the recipe for building & maintaining a winning website in the book Website Owner's Manual. It is a one of a kind book that consolidates key topics that a website owner needs to be aware of. It covers diverse themes like planning the site, selecting the team, creating website content,  handling it's design, aesthetics and development, usability, managing traffic, using Content Management Systems, Search Engine Optimization, hosting etc. There are also practical tips throughout the book. Sample these -

To quickly find out who is linking to your competition, you can type the following into Google link:http://www.yourCompetition.com

The first paragraph of the page should provide a summary of everything that follows, allowing the user to quickly ascertain if the page is relevant.

The author's writing style is breezy & informal. The cartoons that go with the content are thoughtful & keep the content light. I liked the mini website case studies spread throughout the book that highlight best practices, pitfalls and items of special interest.

I have known small business owners, entrepreneurs, non technical professionals (like doctors, academicians) who appreciate the power of websites to further their goals but lack the technical expertise to leverage the Web. This book can be a good introductory manual for such people.

I have been a honorary reviewer of this book while it was in the draft stage and I'm happy with the way the book has come out finally.

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Book Review: Beginning SQL Server 2005 for Developers

Beginning SQL Server 2005 for Developers by Robin Dewson lives up to it's title of being a helpful resource for beginners to SQL Server 2005. The author patiently walks the reader through the basics & a wide breadth of topics with adequate examples in the 500+ paged book spanning 14 chapters. Many of the examples are demonstrated using multiple modes - SQL Server Management Studio, TSQL & Templates.

The book is filled with interesting facts, "gotchas", practical tips & tricks that make the chapters engaging. I have used the SELECT statement for years but I did not know that $IDENTITY & $ROWGUID can be used with the SELECT statement to return the value from the IDENTITY column & the ROWGUID column if such columns exist within the table being querying upon. Similarly I have used the COUNT function but didn't know there was a COUNT_BIG function as well that returns a bigint data type value unlike COUNT which returns an int type value.

I feel the information in the book could have been better presented & organized. There were some places where the examples of usage could have been closer to the topic for better assimilation.

My rating: 4/5

Also see:
SSMS Tips & Tricks
Free SQL Server 2008 Learning Resources

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Book Review: Cancer Has Its Privileges

We have put a man on the moon decades ago, but it's sad that science doesn't have a solution yet to wipe out the scourge of Cancer which has been there for centuries. The Big C is a devastating illness that cripples it's victims physically, monetarily & more than that, mentally as it affects their loved ones as well.

Cancer Has Its Privileges: Stories of Hope and Laughter is a poignant compilation of thoughts, anecdotes, poems and "chicken soup for the soul" type of experiences by brave cancer survivors & their loved ones. This is the fourth book of the author Christine Clifford, a cancer survivor & founder of The Cancer Club, who believes in the therapeutic value of positive thinking & humor.

The book has tips for cancer patients, their family & friends on coping with the dreaded illness. Sometimes well-meaning well-wishers of a patient get disconnected not knowing how to help. There is a chapter on how friends & family can help. Some ways of showing care & support to the afflicted is by spending time together, accompanying them on their visits to the hospital, offering to help with daily chores, preparing meals, being a "nap nanny", gifting them their favorite books & music and complimenting them on their positive changes.

This is a good book for anyone whose life has been touched directly or indirectly by cancer.

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Book Review: In the Trenches with Microsoft Office Project 2007

Project 2007 is a complex & powerful tool for Project management. By taking over the number crunching & analysis part, it helps Project Managers conserve time and focus on decision making aspects. In the Trenches with Microsoft Office Project 2007 by Elaine Marmel shows how to use Project 2007 for various Project management situations in about 350 odd pages. In a part cookbook, part tutorial style the author takes the reader through common scenarios that a PM can face, suggests best practices and offers useful tips.

As the author admits, this book is not specifically a guide for Project 2007. It is ill-suited for beginners to Project 2007. It does not target any specific edition of Project 2007. I feel the contents could have been organized and presented in a better way to make it more engaging. I love it when key points are summarized at the end of each chapter (as in Code Complete or some of the Microsoft Certification guides). That way, the gist of the chapters are sticky & more memorable. I sorely missed it in this book.

If I had to rate this book in Amazon style, I would give it 3 stars out of 5

Trivia - Project 2007 does not have the "Ribbon"

Also see -
HOW TO create a Ribbon-less Excel 2003 UI in Excel 2007

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Book Review: Learning jQuery

I "discovered" jQuery a few months ago. jQuery is JavaScript on steroids. I've found it so useful, I've stayed hooked. The website Visual jQuery and the book Learning jQuery : Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques by Karl Swedberg (a jQuery Evangelist) & Jonathan Chaffer have been extremely useful in helping me understand and appreciate the goodness of jQuery.

In my opinion, a good technical book has the following characteristics:

• Is written in plain English with a conversational tone
• Has practical reusable examples with scenarios I can relate to
• Provides adequate background info on crucial concepts

This 380-paged book meets that definition. Chapters 1 to 7 cover the basics and key jQuery Library features like HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and AJAX interactions. The remaining chapters cover the practical uses of jQuery including Plugins, a feature that has bowled me over. Among all the chapters, I found the ones on DOM Manipulation and AJAX valuable. There are numerous examples that can be applied at work. Reading through the book, it is apparent that it has been written by folks who have been in the trenches. I loved the little thoughtful tid-bits across the book, like this one -

Notice the use of a $ in the variable name, $speech. Since $ is a legal character in JavaScript variables, we can use it as a reminder that the variable is storing a jQuery object.

I wish the book came with a cheat-sheet or a map of all the important jQuery methods, properties and functions indexed to the detailed descriptions in the chapters.

I recommend this book to everyone getting started with jQuery.

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Book Review: Almost Perfect

Almost Perfect is the story of WordPerfect (a word processor for personal computers) as told by Pete Paterson, owner of a failing drapery business who jumped onto selling software, head it's Sales and Marketing division and drove annual sales to half a billion dollars in a span of a decade. The entire book is available online.

Although I found the book to be dry and depressing, I feel it has good lessons for anyone getting into Software Product development. It also tracks the initial years of the PC Revolution - the challenges and opportunities it created. It was a roller-coaster ride that helped some companies and products make billions while others like WordPerfect perished.

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Book Review: Software Project Survival Guide

"How does a project get to be a year late?... One day at a time" - Fredrick P. Brooks

When you are setting out on a long journey along an unknown path, it pays to seek advice from folks who know that path well. Similarly you can count on the book Software Project Survival Guide by Steve McConnell, the accomplished author of the classics Code Complete and Rapid Development, for guidance on completing your project successfully.

The author draws inspiration from the best practices suggested by numerous Software Project Management publications and his rich experience to prescribe a Staged Delivery approach to tackle small & medium sized projects. His pragmatic & optimistic approach has some elements from the Agile methodology. He emphasizes the power of "Process" and shows how it can lead to better predictability, visibility and control. There was just one instance where I felt this may have been romanticized -

The completed Software Project History provides a useful supplement to each team member's individual memory. Holding a printed, bound history document provides a sense of closure, and each project member should recieve a personal copy.
(Chapter 17, End-of-Stage Wrap-Up)

Having worked for a CMM Level 5 company, I initially detested all the documentation but soon understood the value of metrics and the discipline it enforces which pays dividends in the long run. I agree with the author that "the cost & schedule penalty for having too much process is far smaller than the penalty for having too little process".

Running across some 300 pages, the book is filled with practical recommendations, documentation templates, checklists, dos and don'ts for a newbie Project Manager or Lead on a medium sized project. Overall, I think this is a great reference for software engineering practitioners.

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Book Review: A People's History of the United States

On my sixteenth birthday, a cousin gifted me a copy of MAD magazine ("Number one in a field of one"). The magazine or comic book as some would call, satirizes various aspects of American life & generally takes the side of the underdog. It had a perspective that was unique and it's irreverent (but never below-the-belt) humor kept me hooked for years. Last year an American friend presented me the book A People's History of the United States as a parting gift. I found this to be a serious version of MAD magazine in the way it chronicles American life. When I sat to read both books, I did not have any idea what I was getting into. Both turned out to be very thought provoking.

Prior to reading the book, I had scant knowledge of American History. To relate to it better, I started reading the chapters from the back. Covering the history of America through five centuries, the prolific author Howard Zinn empathetically tells the untold stories through the voices of oppressed and marginalized people. The book is filled with disturbing facts and inconvenient truths. Zinn picks on the flaws of American Presidents, powerful people and institutions to reveal a not-so-shiny side of USA. I got to learn about the diversity of America and the challenges a democractic country has to face. Despite the dissenting tone, the book helped me know a little more about the United States & what goes into the making of a country.

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Book Review: Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal

It's comforting to know that food can also be preventive medicine. Foods That Harm, Foods That Heal - An A-Z Guide to Safe and Healthy Eating beautifully explains the benefits & drawbacks of various vegetables, fruits & food sources. Written by experts and full of relevant images, this colorful book makes for interesting reading. Common diseases and the effects of various types of food on them are also discussed. All the topics are arranged alphabetically. This makes it great to use for future reference.

The book has been written for an American audience. Although this does not diminish the value of the book's contents, I wish it was written in more general terms to suit a global audience.

Being a vegetarian & foodie, I did not know about the health value & drawbacks of the food I've been eating all these years. I loved reading this book for all the practical knowledge it contained and highly recommend it to others.

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Book Review: JavaScript Step by Step

JavaScript Step by Step by Steve Suehring is a good "plain-English" book for beginners. Although it lacks both breadth & depth, it covers topics that are relevant to current client side Web development. Out of the 19 chapters, 3 are dedicated to AJAX. The author's explanation of HTTP headers & how they can be manipulated with the XMLHttpRequest object is pretty interesting.

I found a couple of sentences in the book ridiculous

Obtaining an MSDN account from Microsoft will give you access to legacy products, including older versions of Internet Explorer, so that you can see how your site reacts to a visit from Internet Explorer 4.

IE4? Should anyone go out to please someone with a IE4 browser?

addEventListener() is defined as a "cross-browser (except for Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer) event handler method"

Now, that's a funny definition of cross-browser - excluding the most popular of browsers.

IE4, by the way reminded me of the first Javascript book, I purchased way back in 2000 - Pure Javascript. It lists every method and property of Javascript objects available at that point of time. At over 1400 pages, the book is so bulky no one may have read it from first to last, probably not even it's proof readers - it had quite a lot of errors and some of the snippets didn't run. I however liked the idea of having all possible methods and properties for ready reference. W3Schools which I discovered much later has an exhaustive coverage of Javascript too with great samples(except maybe this IFrame scrolling example). It remains one of my favorite learning resources.

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Book Review - I. M. Wright's Hard Code

"I'm not opinionated, I'm always right" - spotted on a T-Shirt

The book "I. M. Wright's Hard Code" is a collection of 49 opinion columns from among the many originally written "for Microsoft software developers and their managers, though they were drawn from my (Eric's) 28 years of experience in the software industry with six different companies". The book talks about the "folklore, customs, cultures, tools, processes, and rules of thumb that allow us (Microsoft) to build and ship the most complex software in the world". It has tips, tricks, techniques & thoughts about people and project management. It offers food for thought to developers and the chain above that manages them. 

The author Eric Brechner is a software industry and Microsoft veteran. He talks through his alter ego I. M. Wright in a tone that makes you sit up & listen. You will love or hate I. M. Wright, but you can't ignore him.

I. M. Wright is ..

provactive  (""By now the Agile fanatics out there are screaming, "Use Agile methods!" Yeah, well try meeting weekly or monthly with 100 million customers. It's not as easy as it looks. I'm not saying it's a bad concept, I'm saying you're hallucinating""), 

controversial  ("Google: Serious threat or poor spelling?"), 

conceited ("At best, Google will be a niche player like Apple"), 

candid ("XP even suggests pair programming, but personally, I think that wastes resources (except for devs learning a new code base)"),

opinionated ("I still think the idea of Green Belts and Black Belts is goofy and that the methodology itself is recycled TQM and CQI.")

irreverant ("Is your PUM a bum?" PUM within MS is a Product Unit Manager whose role is equivalent to Group Manager or  Director)

but at the same time he is ..

discerning ("I was given a mind of my own, and I fully intend to use it. Not just at parties and social occasions but on every subject and dealing I have. Questioning why and understanding how are at the center of who I am.")

humorous  ("I've been busy dogfooding lately. It's an ideal diversion for masochists") and 

insightful  ("Agile methods work beautifully at the team level; formal methods work beautifully at the project level; and long-term strategic planning methods work beautifully at the product level"). He plays all the negative shades to drive home his message. I. M. Wright is like a football coach prodding the team out of complacency and motivating them when they are down.

The first six chapters dissect the software development process, the next three target people issues, and the last chapter critiques how the software business is run. Except for the last chapter that I found out of sync with the rest of the content, the rest are engaging & thought provoking.

If you want to sample some of the content before you read the book, you can find two of the chapters on MSDN and some of the author's columns on his blog.

It is not often that people who have been there and done that share their ideas & thoughts. This book is filled with nuggets of wisdom and some great geek talk. I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to those interested in people and project management.

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Book Review: Agile Project Management with Scrum

Many large companies have taken advantage of Scrum to undertake complex projects in an incremental fashion. Without doubt it is a promising methodology if understood & implemented properly.

If you haven't heard of Scrum or know little about it, Ken Schwaber's nearly 200 paged book 'Agile Project Management with Scrum' is a good resource to understand the essentials. The book is engaging all throughout as it is anecdotal & the tone is conversational. The author uses case studies (involving what appear to be fictional companies) to explain the important concepts of Scrum. Throughout the nine chapters, he constantly repeats the key phrases & jargon to reinforce the basic principles.

As the book is written by a Scrum co-creator and evangelist, I felt it was not objective & dispassionate. Although it has important tips for practitioners, it does not tell us specifically what scenarios Scrum is not suitable for.

Scrum is also idealistic. Sample this -

Scrum relies on individual and team commitments rather than on top-down control through planning. Self-organization and human commitment are far more powerful mechanisms than imposed controls, plans, and even loyalty.

When the team members stop acting as many and adopt and commit to a common purpose, the team becomes capable of self-organization and can quickly cut through complexity and produce actionable plans. At that point, the members of a team no longer accept obstacles, but instead scheme, plot, noodle, and brainstorm about how to remove them. They figure out how to make their project happen despite the different backgrounds and skill sets each person brings to the job.

Sounds cool, but how easy is it to build a self-managing, self-organizing team and importantly sustain it? You would have to find ways beyond this book to verify if Scrum is suitable for your project.

Nevertheless, this book is a helpful & practical guide to understand Scrum.

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Book Review: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Plain & Simple

The book is what it claims to be - a simple, pictorial, plain English guide to Outlook 2007. It is suitable for folks who are completely new to Outlook 2007 or have some exposure to previous versions but find the new UI a little daunting.

I have used different email client tools at different times. I found Outlook 2007 intuitive and more feature rich than prior versions. This book helped me improve my Office skills. The major advantage of being skilled with tools rather than having a superficial knowledge is that you can leave home a little early from work and dazzle co-workers (provided they aren't reading these kind of books already)

Spread over 14 chapters & 250+ pages, this book covers all essential features of Outlook 2007 like managing E-Mails, RSS Feeds, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Journal, Items and Folders. Several practical tips are interspersed between the step by step instructions for implementing activities related to the above features.

It is assumed implicitly in some of the examples that Outlook 2007 is connected to Exchange Server 2007. My Outlook 2007 is connected to Exchange Server 2003. Due to this I was led offtrack by a screen shot showing the Scheduling Assistant with Suggested Times of meeting participants which I did not see when I tried it out. It turns out that the Suggested Times pane is shown only when Outlook is connected to Exchange Server 2007.

Overall, the book was breezy, useful and interesting to read. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to quickly understand the essential topics of Outlook 2007.

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