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Title: Patterns of Software System Failure and Success by Capers Jones ISBN: 1-85032-804-8 Publisher: International Thomson Publishing Pub. Date: January, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

Rating: 5
Summary: Mythical Man Month Revisited
Comment: In many respects this book is an amalgamation of the author's previous work, especially "Assessment and Control of Software Risks" (1994) and "Software Productivity and Quality Today: The Worldwide Perspective" (1993).

First, don't be misled by the work "Patterns" in the title - this book is not structured in a design patterns format that has emerged as a popular standard. Instead it's an analysis and findings from an extensive collection of software project metrics from large projects (half million lines of code and greater) that were either successful or failed.

The descriptions of the projects, how the analyses were performed and the findings are, in my experience, still valid today as they were when this book was written. More importantly, they serve as a set of guidelines for critical success factors, which can be derived from the twelve attributes that Jones culls from the study: effective project planning, effective project cost estimating, effective project measurements, effective project milestone tracking, effective project quality control, effective project change management, effective development processes, effective communications, capable project managers, capable technical personnel, significant use of specialists, substantial volumes of reusable material.

Not surprising, the major pitfalls in the projects that failed were caused by poor management and leadership. In fact, this book states what to many of us are truisms, but backs them up with ample statistics and excellent research. In my opinion every software project manager should be required to read this book before being turned loose on a major project.