Beyond Chaos: The Expert Edge in Managing Software Development (ACM Press) (Paperback)

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Chaos. Not the inchoate state of the early universe, not the ill-behaved subject of a specialized branch of mathematics, not the mid-revolutionary fragmentation of a society in transition, but coding chaos--the everyday reality of projects that develop software applications for computers and the World Wide Web.

Countless managers struggle for control and stability, for accountability and predictability amidst this chaos. From the project leaders, who provide the day-to-day oversight and guidance all the way up to the CIOs, whose charge is strategic direction and corporate-wide coordination, they struggle to understand and manage technology and processes of enormous complexity made all the more complex and unmanageable by the relentless and accelerating pace of technological change.

Herding squirrels. Corralling cats. Taming the mongrel hordes. Whatever the metaphor, the challenges of managing software development are legend. The stories are alarmingly similar for projects of every scope and size, whether staffed by the arrayed forces of thousands of programmers and testers or tackled by a small team of freelancers. The budget may be blown by a hundred percent or more and deadline upon deadline may be passed like so many exits on a freeway. Rarely do software development projects meet budget constraints, technical objectives, and delivery schedules--if indeed recognizable constraints, objectives, and schedules exist. Applications that are far more complex than a high-rise office building have sometimes been launched with little more planning than a sketch on the back of a napkin.

Some managers simply give up and accept this uncontrolled chaos as the state of affairs, an unchangeable reality and the unavoidable price of dealing with a highly paid and poorly understood profession. They accept the reality of seeking discipline among the undisciplined, of perpetually pushing the envelope of the possible, or of seeking certainty where specifications are little more than executive fantasies and deadlines are the arbitrary impositions of uninformed marketing managers.

Some managers seek refuge in mind-numbing manuals of procedure and in the step-by-step details of elaborately defined processes. They rationalize the investment in expensive systems that promise predictability through the imposition of regulation and regimentation.

Some managers, defining defeat as success, instead celebrate unmanageable chaos as the crucible of creation, the necessary and desired context in which to unleash the powers of the digital genie that will transform life on earth.

Beyond chaos, however, beyond surrender or celebration, is another view of software development--the view that software development projects and software developers are indeed manageable, that chaos is not an inevitable condition or concomitant. In this view, salvation dwells in the details, success lies in subtle insights, and control is achieved through thoughtful attention and planning.

The expert edge is the difference. Compiled in this book are the insights, inspiration, practical pointers, and provocative thinking of an elite assemblage of working managers and practicing consultants--the recognized experts who contributed monthly to the Management Forum. The Forum, a regular feature in the respected industry publication Software Development, occupied the prestigious inside back page of the magazine and proved to be one its most popular features.

Written for busy working managers, the Forum featured pragmatic, provocative essays by the leading thinkers and doers in software and Web development, software engineering, and technical management, including such industry luminaries as Ed Yourdon, Capers Jones, Meilir Page-Jones, Steve McConnell, and Jim Highsmith. The column set high standards for the clarity and quality of both the writing and the thinking it expressed. Every guest columnist was charged with the twin tasks of providing something that a working manager could put to use tomo