Software Leadership: A Guide to Successful Software Development

I bought Murray Cantor's Software Leadership when I was looking for a way to help new team leaders understand how to transition from being coders and experts to being leaders who could deliver business solutions. The book's practical approach and readable size made it an instant hit so we equipped every dev lead in the company with a copy and held a series of seminars to discuss each chapter. I like the way this book breaks down into independent chapters that each teach a separate and highly relevant dimension of the software leadership role. While Cantor does cover some specifics of the software engineering process, the fundamental wisdom conveyed is not process-specific; you can use it in old-school waterfall environments, extreme programming shops or anything in between. Powerful analogies connect the big ideas to everyday leadership actions, with the right emphasis on planning vs. doing and the right balance of time, scope and quality. Cantor is an excellent writer who has packaged a soon-to-be classic book. Get a copy and see for yourself! Mike Finley [...]

It almost runs the gambit of what you need to do. It advirtizes the RUP but you need not use it to stay in the same style of successfull development this book suggests.

This is the perfect read for anyone who is involved in developing software in their career or for anyone looking to improve how their company views the NEW software development paradigm. This is just the beginning to an education journey....

Successful software projects need to be organized and managed opposite to successful companies, because of the need for creativity. This book points out the differences in crystal clarity, with very specific suggestions on what to do at each stage of moving software projects forward. Of particular interest are shortcomings of the other approaches such as waterfall, hands-off, and rapid prototyping. Details on how to use RUP (Rational Unified Process) with UML examples are provided as well.

Murray Cantor's book discusses leadership, which is an important, though neglected, area of software development. In the introduction Murray Cantor makes it clear this isn't a 'how to' book about software development -- though he writes well on this here -- but this book is about *leading* a software development process. Again and again Murray reminds us that developing software is a team effort, and that only as an effective team will we succeed. Murray drives this point home forcefully in chapter 3 when he reminds the reader that software projects are non-linear. He observes, correctly, that "Common sense flows from a shared view of how the world works." On the next page he reinfoces this with his tip that our new common sense approach to development is about leadership. From this point on, Murray illustrates the way in which to apply the team concepts to the process of building software. If the reader is current with the literature as it pertains to development methods, then the technology in the book will not be new. Nevertheless, the lessons pertaining to team building are as profound as they are necessary. Those using the book as an introduction to development methodology will have the treat of learning this from one of the best, and as a bonus receive his sound advice regarding leadership. Murray has written a book that should be on the shelf of any manager, er leader, associated with the development of software products. This is definitely a "two-thumbs-up" book.