Rapid Development

If your development schedule keeps getting away from you, here's how to get a firm grip on it.

Corporate and commercial software-development teams all want solutions for one important problem—how to get their high-pressure development schedules under control. In RAPID DEVELOPMENT, author Steve McConnell addresses that concern head-on with overall strategies, specific best practices, and valuable tips that help shrink and control development schedules and keep projects moving. As readers of McConnell's Code Complete would expect, the content is impressive indeed, bringing together the best research and large doses of hardwon experience. Inside you'll find:

• A rapid-development strategy that can be applied to any project, and the best practices to make that strategy work
• Candid discussions of great and not-so great rapid-development practices—estimation, prototyping, forced overtime, motivation, teamwork, rapid-development languages, risk management, and many other techniques
• A list of classic mistakes to avoid for rapid-development projects, including creeping requirements, shortchanged quality, and silverbullet syndrome
• Case studies that vividly illustrate what can go wrong, what can go right, and how to tell which direction your project is going

RAPID DEVELOPMENT is the real-world guide to more efficient software applications development. Get it—and get control of your development projects.

• Part I: Efficient Development
1. Welcome to Rapid Development
• What is Rapid Development?
• Attaining Rapid Development
2. Rapid-Development Strategy
• General Strategy for Rapid Development
• Four Dimensions of Development Speed
• General Kinds of Fast Development
• Which Dimension Matters the Most?
• An Alternative Rapid-Development Strategy
• Further Reading
3. Classic Mistakes
• Case Study in Classic Mistakes
• Effect of Mistakes on a Development Schedule
• Classic Mistakes Enumerated
• Escape from Gilligan's Island
• Further Reading
4. Software-Development Fundamentals
• Management Fundamentals
• Technical Fundamentals
• Quality-Assurance Fundamentals
• Following the Instructions
• Further Reading
5. Risk Management
• Elements of Risk Management
• Risk Identification
• Risk Analysis
• Risk Prioritization
• Risk Control
• Risk, High Risk, and Gambling
• Further Reading
• Part II: Rapid Development
6. Core Issues in Rapid Development
• Does One Size Fit All?
• What Kind of Rapid Development Do You Need?
• Odds of Completing on Time
• Perception and Reality
• Where the Time Goes
• Development-Speed Tradeoffs
• Typical Schedule-Improvement Pattern
• Onward to Rapid Development
• Further Reading
7. Lifecycle Planning
• Pure Waterfall
• Code-and-Fix
• Spiral
• Modified Waterfalls
• Evolutionary Prototyping
• Staged Delivery
• Design To Schedule
• Evolutionary Delivery
• Design to Tools
• Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software
• Choosing the Most Rapid Lifecycle For Your Project
• Further Reading
8. Estimation
• The Software-Estimation Story
• Estimation-Process Overview
• Size Estimation
• Effort Estimation
• Schedule Estimation
• Ballpark Schedule Estimates
• Estimate Refinement
• Further Reading
9. 9 Scheduling
• Overly Optimistic Scheduling
• Beating Schedule Pressure
• Further Reading
10. Customer-Oriented Development
• Customers' Importance to Rapid Development
• Customer-Oriented Practices
• Managing Customer Expectations
• Further Reading
11. Motivation
• Typical Developer Motivations
• Using the Top Five Motivation Factors
• Using Other Motivation Factors
• Morale Killers
• Further Reading
12. Teamwork
• Software Uses of Teamwork
• Teamwork's Importance to Rapid Development
• Creating a High-Performance Team
• Why Teams Fail
• Long-Term Teambuilding
• Summary of Teamwork Guidelines
• Further Reading
13. Team Structure
• Team-Structure Considerations
• Team Models
• Managers and Technical Leads
• Further Reading
14. Feature-Set Control
• Early Project: Feature-Set Reduction
• Mid-Project: Feature-Creep Control
• Late Project: Feature Cuts
• Further Reading
15. Productivity Tools
• Role of Productivity Tools in Rapid Development
• Productivity-Tool Strategy
• Productivity-Tool Acquisition
• Productivity-Tool Use
• Silver-Bullet Syndrome
• Further Reading
16. Project Recovery
• Case Studies in Project Recovery
• General Recovery Options
• Recovery Plan
• Further Reading
• Part III: Best Practices

17. Change Board
18. Daily Build and Smoke Test
19. Designing for Change
20. Evolutionary Delivery
21. Evolutionary Prototyping
22. Goal Setting
23. Inspections
24. Joint Application Design
25. Lifecycle Model Selection
26. Measurement
27. Miniature Milestones
28. Outsourcing
29. Principled Negotiation
30. Productivity Environments
31. Rapid-Development Languages
32. Requirements Scrubbing
33. Reuse
34. Signing Up
35. Spiral Lifecycle Model
36. Staged Delivery
37. Theory-W Project Management
38. Throwaway Prototyping
39. Timebox Development
40. Tools Group
41. Top-10 Risks List
42. User-Interface Prototyping
43. Voluntary Overtime

Excellent book on software development and associated project methodologies. A personal favourite.

Recommended reading for anyone in the IT industry.