Systems Analysis and Design (6th Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)The Kendalls have definitely created a comprehensive book on systems analysis. Virtually every aspect is covered here, and in plenty of detail. There are plenty of review questions and problems, hypothetical consulting situations, an ongoing case-study, and even an associated web-based case study.
While being well written, I feel that this text may be a bit overdone. Most sections are longer than neccessary, over-explaining fairly obvious concepts. So although the reader can never complain about being short-changed, I would be amazed if any reader needed ALL of the explanations to understand what was being discussed.
I have also noticed a few cases of dated information creeping through from previous editions. One example is a discussion on groupware that talks about features of Windows for Workgroups and Windows NT, and mentions the 'upcoming' Chicago release. Chicago was the working name for Windows 95, which was hardly 'upcoming' for a text published in 1999.
It feels as if the Kendalls have been adding new information to their revised editions, but not revising thoroughly enough to remove old or out of date references. If a really good job of revision was done here, I think this text could be reduced by at least a hundred pages or so without any real loss of useful content.
Since it emphasises practice more than theory, it may not appeal to all types, but for anyone who needs to know HOW to be a systems analyst, this is probably the book to read.

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Dynamic, comprehensive coverage makes this the perfect book on systems analysis and design, with a reader-friendly presentation of development, methods, tools, and techniques. A variety of review questions and problems, an ongoing case study, and an Internet-based case study offer learners an understandable and motivating look at the SAD field. For production supervisors and other business personnel in similar positions who want a working knowledge—without the in-depth command—of information systems.

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Software Engineering: (Update) (8th Edition) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I used this book as the text in my software engineering class in the spring semester of 2008. When I was evaluating it for potential adoption, I did not read through it in detail, I looked over the chapter titles and subtitles, read the first few chapters and examined the exercises at the end of the first few chapters. As the semester progressed, I found myself wishing I had read further into the text.
As I moved through the chapters, I found myself mentally noting over and over again that topics are repeated. When the class was over, I asked the students their opinion of the book and they were unanimous, with no prompting from me, in saying that there is a great deal of repetition after the first chapters.
I have no complaint about the quality of exposition or the coverage of software engineering in this book. My reason for not continuing to use it in future classes is solely due to my belief that the size could have been reduced from the current 840 pages to around 600 pages with no real loss of content of flow.


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THE most current Software Engineering text in the market– quality trusted coverage, practical case studies, strong lecturer support.

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Applied Software Project Management Review

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(More customer reviews)I've tried many project management processes and have searched through most of the popular literature over the years trying to find the best way to implement real process change. Much of the literature describes the processes well but ignores the implementation entirely. Applied Software Project Management does a wonderful job both describing the various tools and techniques and giving detailed instructions on how to implement them. The book even goes so far as to describing how to implement processes in an organization that is openly hostile to change and/or process in general.
I find this book to be an invaluable resource for any project manager. It's great for newbies, who will learn all the vocabulary and process theory. Experienced project managers will learn new tools and techniques as well as innovatives ways of getting them implemented.

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"If you're looking for solid, easy-to-follow advice on estimation, requirements gathering, managing change, and more, you can stop now: this is the book for you." --Scott Berkun, Author ofThe Art of Project Management

What makes software projects succeed? It takes more than a good idea and a team of talented programmers. A project manager needs to know how to guide the team through the entire software project. There are common pitfalls that plague all software projects and rookie mistakes that are made repeatedly--sometimes by the same people! Avoiding these pitfalls is not hard, but it is not necessarily intuitive. Luckily, there are tried and true techniques that can help any project manager.

In Applied Software Project Management, Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene provide you with tools, techniques, and practices that you can use on your own projects right away. This book supplies you with the information you need to diagnose your team's situation and presents practical advice to help you achieve your goal of building better software.

Topics include:

Planning a software project
Helping a team estimate its workload
Building a schedule
Gathering software requirements and creating use cases
Improving programming with refactoring, unit testing, and version control
Managing an outsourced project
Testing software

Jennifer Greene and Andrew Stellman have been building software together since 1998. Andrew comes from a programming background and has managed teams of requirements analysts, designers, and developers. Jennifer has a testing background and has managed teams of architects, developers, and testers. She has led multiple large-scale outsourced projects. Between the two of them, they have managed every aspect of software development. They have worked in a wide range of industries, including finance, telecommunications, media, nonprofit, entertainment, natural-language processing, science, and academia. For more information about them and this book, visit http://www.stellman-greene.com.

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The Business Analyst's Handbook Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This book has solid reference material that experienced Business Analysts can utilize on virtually any assignment. This is not the best book for a new Business Analyst and is really geared towards a practitioner that understands their craft and appreciates additional guidance. Coverage of techniques and models is very comprehensive.

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The Business Analyst (BA) plays an important role as liaison between business stakeholders and the technical team (software developers, vendors, etc.), ensuring that business needs are reflected in any software solution. Despite the importance of the job, there is currently no book specifically designed as a comprehensive reference manual for the working BA. The Business Analyst's Handbook solves this problem by providing a useful compendium of tools, tables, lists, and templates that BAs can use on-the-job to carry out their tasks. For example, you might be preparing for an interview session and use the book's checklist of interviewees to verify whether there is appropriate coverage of business stakeholders. Or you might be asked to review some diagrams and refer to the Glossaries of Symbols (organized by diagram type) for guidance. Or you may be asked to prepare textual requirements documentation and refer to the Business Requirement template for a list of artifacts and table of contents. Whatever your BA needs, the Business Analyst's Handbook places the necessary information right at your fingertips.

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Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Our organization recently implemented Scrum, and although the
Beedle/Schwaber book was great to get us off the ground on Scrum
theory, we immediately had many questions once we actually tried to implement it in real life projects. I agree with the notion that Scrum is conceptually easy to understand, but actually quite complex to implement correctly. The scrum forum has been helpful, but we really needed a cohesive reference of situational problems. The APMWS book really hit the nail on the head and delivered what we needed the most: a practical guide to Scrum with anecdotes and "what happens if..." situations from real world Scrum implementations. This came just in time for us, and we are feeling more confident for our upcoming certification class.
The appendices in the back are also very helpful. The "Rules"
appendix is perfect as a quick introduction to Scrum for new Team
members and Product Owners. It's actually quite detailed for being such a short appendix.
Also, for newbies the three main Roles are very nicely explained. We had some misconceptions that were immediately addressed by this book.
Anyway, from a Scrum newbie that is faced with implementation issues, thanks to Ken for putting together a real world implementation guide.

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The rules and practices for Scrum—a simple process for managing complex projects—are few, straightforward, and easy to learn. But Scrum's simplicity itself—its lack of prescription—can be disarming, and new practitioners often find themselves reverting to old project management habits and tools and yielding lesser results. In this illuminating series of case studies, Scrum co-creator and evangelist Ken Schwaber identifies the real-world lessons—the successes and failures—culled from his years of experience coaching companies in agile project management. Through them, you'll understand how to use Scrum to solve complex problems and drive better results—delivering more valuable software faster.

Gain the foundation in Scrum theory—and practice—you need to:

Rein in even the most complex, unwieldy projects
Effectively manage unknown or changing product requirements
Simplify the chain of command with self-managing development teams
Receive clearer specifications—and feedback—from customers
Greatly reduce project planning time and required tools
Build—and release—products in 30-day cycles so clients get deliverables earlier
Avoid missteps by regularly inspecting, reporting on, and fine-tuning projects
Support multiple teams working on a large-scale project from many geographic locations
Maximize return on investment!

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