Agile Portfolio Management Review

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Agile Portfolio Management Review
I was looking forward to this book! An important hole in the current agile literature and a book only on this subject. Finally... but ... I'm extremely disappointed.
Jochen Krebs' Agile Portfolio Management consists of 3 parts. Part one is called "Agile for Managers", part two is the things about portfolio management and part three is *other* called organization and environment.
The first part consists of three chapters. The first chapter consists a general motivation for agile development and responding to change. The second chapter is a short introduction to Agile development and the last chapter an introduction to project management. This takes up 1/4th of the book. The explanations are poorly written and full with misunderstandings. To give a concrete example, on page 27 Jochen is suggesting that in Scrum you can not have any other meetings except for the daily Scrum. A recommendation which I've never heard before and I'm pretty sure he didn't actually mean that!
Part two consists of about 125 pages and is the main subject of the book, though it starts with three somewhat introduction chapters called Foundation, Metrics and Return of Investment. These chapters don't show too much experience from the author. The suggestion that TDD and Continuous Integration finds defects early so that one of the main quality metrics is open defect count is absurd and goes directly against advise of great agile literature like "Art of Agile development" or "Sustainable Software Development". It gives the feeling the author simply forgot to learn about agile development before he wrote the book. The explanation of story points was vague, the explanation of Use Case points unnecessary. The talk about return of investment forgot to give actual tools for doing so.
After the first 100 pages, I almost threw away the book and was pretty sure I would rate it 1 start. Though, luckily it started to improve. If you buy this book, I recommend to skip the first 100 pages :)
Chapter 7, 8, and 9 cover three portfolios: Project, resource and asset. The project portfolio covered some good ideas like increasing the portfolio decision frequency, using agile metrics and making other decisions than go/kill. The resource portfolio chapter was poor and doesn't talk much about resource management. The asset portfolio chapter is short but covers some important topics not covered frequently in other places.
Part three just consists of two chapters. The first one uses Scrum to become a portfolio management process. I found the idea interest and absurd. Especially the daily portfolio meeting and the portfolio master seen a sure sign of misapplication. The chapter is speculative, the real story about the real situation is missing. It made me doubt the author has actually done this. The second chapter of part three is a chapter about the PMO. I very strongly disagree with the suggestions from the author, especially making the PMO larger for Agile organizations.
In other words, I only thought that part two was worth my time (and only half of that) thats about 50 pages... Next to this, the writing and editing of the book was poor. Some constructions seem very German and sentences are constructed poorly making me sleepy while reading. I wonder if Microsoft Press did any editing at all or supported the author at all. Quite disappointing.
I would not recommend this book to anyone. It's probably better to read some traditional portfolio management book (e.g. Coopers Portfolio Management for New Products) together with some basic Agile books and especially Mike Cohn Agile Estimating and Planning (which covers much of the ROI and value calculation, but explained better). If you read all of these and want some insights and ideas from this book, just read chapter 7, 8 and 9 and skip the rest.
I still rated this book three stars, which is probably too high. After the first 100 pages, I was sure it would not be higher than 1 star. But some chapters contained some insights and that made me decide to give it 2 stars. I switched to three stars simply because I applaud the attempt. This is a new area, there is no existing material and it is great Jochen took this opportunity and tried to fill a gap. Though, a different book is probably needed.Agile Portfolio Management Overview

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Design - Build - Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production Ready Software Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Review

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Design - Build - Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production Ready Software Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) ReviewI'm in agreement with some of the other reviewers on this book that I found it very difficult to get a sense of the purpose of what I was reading. The level of detail, and how much it assumed you already know, varies widely. I don't think one other reviewer was terribly inaccurate when bringing up the idea of this book as a textbook. It's written in a very similar style to what you don't typically see outside of textbooks and technical papers.
The best thing about this book, in my view, is the attitude the author takes toward software development. His consistent message is that quality and being ready for use isn't just about the software itself, but about making sure that the software is appropriate for and will work in the environment that you intend. He does a great job of breaking things down point by point and addresses a huge number of factors.
As I read, however, it was often a little bit difficult to get a real grasp of how to put the material into practice. There are times that he uses actual case studies to talk about what's important and where the focus should be, but much of the time it feels a little bit like I'm being assaulted by bullet points. They're a great tool for breaking up multiple points on a topic in a way that clearly separates them, but they're used so heavily here that it ended up feeling like it was difficult to absorb much of the material.
I think the main problem here is the tension between being a guidebook and being a reference book. It presents itself as a guide book and does provide some useful explanations along those lines, but they then pack information and suggestions in so tightly that it ends up being dragged off in the reference book direction and making the larger themes needlessly difficult to absorb.
I have to say that I also think this book greatly oversells the current potential for creating software that "must not fail". While some companies certainly try, the process of designing flawless software just isn't a solved problem yet if it ever will be. Even with the incredible amount of time and effort put into software for NASA they've still been known to run into problems. In general companies and programming teams are constantly having to weigh decisions on the cost of being certain something will be perfect compared to the risks that it will go wrong if they make a mistake. When talking about "applied practices and principles", I think more attention needs to be spent on how to balance the best possible practices with maintaining a timeline.
I think that this is going to be better as a textbook or reference book for the vast majority of people. I can certainly see someone keeping it on their bookshelf so that it's available to flip to a specific chapter and get some suggestions on how to deal with an issue on a project. For the average person who's interested in improving their understanding of how to go from blank screen to solid software, I think this book is so dense with information that you're more likely to walk away feeling a bit dizzy rather than feeling informed.
Also, for those screen shots and code samples that are included, they tend to focus heavily on Microsoft products. In most cases this makes very little difference, but at times he does make specific reference to Microsoft tools and portions of the interface to the Windows operating system. Your level of familiarity with that environment may affect how easy it is for you to follow the explanations at times. Also, the code samples you get from the book's website is intended to work only with Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. It's always disappointing when a publisher of technology books doesn't make it clear in their descriptions what technologies they expect you to have at hand.
I should also add that while this is part of the "Wrox Programmer to Programmer" series, and they say it's suitable for anyone "from programmers through to software architects", I would really recommend it almost exclusively for the software architect end of the spectrum. Programmers who have a particularly strong interest in the architecture may certainly appreciate it, but for a typical programmer there are better sources on this topic out there.Design - Build - Run: Applied Practices and Principles for Production Ready Software Development (Wrox Programmer to Programmer) Overview

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The IT Value Network: From IT Investment to Stakeholder Value (Wiley) Review

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The IT Value Network: From IT Investment to Stakeholder Value (Wiley) ReviewOne of the unfortunate realities of IT and Busienss these days is that Technology is often seen as something that must be done, regardless of cost or value. Must Do, baseline, best practice,table stakes and other terms have been used to convince business leaders to make investments in technology that do not actually deliver real value.
The framework developed by Dr. Read provides a comprehensive methodology to ensure that IT investments generate the maximum amount of value. This should be required reading for all senior mangers and IT leaders.The IT Value Network: From IT Investment to Stakeholder Value (Wiley) Overview

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Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software Review

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Effective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software ReviewThis invaluable review of the Processes & Business Benefits of User Interface/User Experience Design, provides so much unique and hard won insight into the process of developing superior user interfaces, the goals of users and the business, and in quantifying the benefits of UX design that I can only award it an outstanding Five Star review. One observation, that full engagement with the true goals of users is the end purpose of UI Design, is in itself worth the cost of this excellent book. But in spite of my viewing this book as revolutionary and offering outstanding and unique insights into what User Experience is, how to achieve it and what its benefits are, I do have one major criticism of this otherwise excellent book, its narrative approach and careful explication of its arguments on what the team at "Effective UI" lead to step by step discovery of these insights; there doesn't appear to be a top-down structure allowing for easy browsing of the book; it must be studied at length. Also, an experienced student of Interaction Design and User Experience cannot easily find what the new insights of this book are at a single glance, or find its prescription for a particular step of the design process.
This is an excellent and insightful book on UI Design and User Experience based on the consulting experience of a leading firm in this industry. But the book narrating their experience must be studied, it is difficult to browse.
--Ira Laefsky
MSE, MBA IT & HCI ResearcherEffective UI: The Art of Building Great User Experience in Software Overview

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How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live Review

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How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live ReviewBecause I was new to Microsoft Office Live, I bought this book, hoping it would help me. It did not. I was only looking for the basics. The book does not list the steps necessary to complete an action, is confusing, and rambles around without coming to the point. It could have been, and should have been, writen in 150 pages instead of the nearly 400 it used. I had read the help pages in the program's help sections and expected the book to expound upon them. With neary 400 pages, it definitely should have. Not only did it not do this, it did not even mirror the information given in the "help" sections of the program. Often times, I thought it was written by a Microsoft employee since it spent so much time talking about how much better the Microsoft Live program was than others of its kind. Maybe, if you are an advanced user, this book would work for you. But if you're a novice, I'd suggest you try another book.How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office Live Overview

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Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites Review

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Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites ReviewThis book is not about project management. In fact, someone versed in the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge will cringe at some of the statements made in the book (more about that below). It is, however, about delivering successful commercial web sites and it provides the best approach I have ever seen.
Here are some of the things that make this not only unique, but the most authoritative book I have read on the subject:
(1) It is not an IT centric book that focuses on technical issues. The author brings to the forefront the real critical success factors in the form of four equal sets of requirements: commercial, creative, content and technical. In 2000 I was a member of a multi-million dollar dot com project team for a large international company, and from that experience I totally agree with the author's view.
(2)The author manages to balance the time-to-market pressures that permeate commercial web projects with the by-the-numbers method imposed by IT. As such, this book addresses the development life cycle from inception to production by aligning implementation to development life cycle stages. It manages to accomplish this and still cut the project's cycle time by removing any fluff. What is fluff? The tons of non-essential paperwork produced by some of the larger consulting companies. What is not missing are the essentials, as evidenced by the repeated emphasis on testing, the attention given to configuration and change management, and the realities of post-implementation support. These are extremely important and are too often overlooked.
(3) The project controls that are proposed in this book are exceptional. While the author muddles through stuff like the proper definition of critical path, he shows how to effectively control a project by managing to deliverables. Contrast this with the common mistake of managing to a schedule and you will see the real effectiveness of his methods. So, while he misses the mark on some project management fundamentals, he sure makes up for it in pragmatism. He also makes up for his "transgressions" by laying out a project roadmap that, if followed, will guarantee success. If we project management "purists" lighten up a bit while reading this stuff we might learn a trick or two.
The big surprise is the author is not an IT professional - his background is TV producer! Or, perhaps it's not a surprise at all considering the fact that there is no room for failure or missed production schedules in the TV industry, while the IT profession is notorious for massive schedule and cost overruns. What impressed me greatly is the wide range of technical issues that are addressed: browser compatibility, content formats, scripting languages, etc. For someone without an IT background the author demonstrates a solid grasp of real-life issues and gotchas.
Those of us in IT need to carefully read the parts that address creative and content management. We are used to working with technical peers from vendors - working with copywriters and artists requires a wholly different way of interacting and communicating. Moreover, content needs to be treated in an entirely different matter than data, and it also comes with an array of legal issues that we are not trained to think about.
What I discovered , despite my previous involvement with a commercial web project, is there are so many factors I had never considered prior to reading this book that most projects are flying blind. As such, this book should be read by every team member, creative, content (artists and copywriters), technical, legal and commercial (marketing)*before* undertaking such a project. This will ensure that the entire team sees the big picture and understands the complex interrelationships, and all issues and factors are addressed. Mr. Friedlein deserves the highest accolades for making what I believe to be the most significant contribution to this field. My only regret is that I am limited to 5 stars.Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites Overview

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