The pervasiveness of software in business makes it crucial that software engineers and developers understand how software development impacts an entire organization. Strategic Software Engineering: An Interdisciplinary Approach presents software engineering as a strategic, business-oriented, interdisciplinary endeavor, rather than simply a technica

"Just the understanding and insights you will pick up about how people encounter and cope with combinations of technical, social, political, and economic opportunities and challenges make the book a joy to read and worth much more than the price of it alone." --Barry Boehm, from the Foreword This practical handbook shows you how to build an effective business case when you need to justify--and persuade management to accept--software change or improvement. Based on real-world scenarios, the book covers the most common situations in which business case analyses are required and explains specific techniques that have proved successful in practice. Drawing on years of experience in winning the "battle of the budget," the author shows you how to use commonly accepted engineering economic arguments to make your numbers "sing" to management. The book provides examples of successful business cases; along the way, tables, tools, facts, figures, and metrics guide you through the entire analytic process. Writing in a concise and witty style, the author makes this valuable guidance accessible to every software engineer, manager, and IT professional. Highlights include: How and where business case analyses fit into the software and IT life cycle process Explanations of the most common tools for business case analysis, such as present-value, return-on-investment, break-even, and cost/benefit calculation Tying the business process to the software development life cycle Packaging the business case for management consumption Frameworks and guidelines for justifying IT productivity, quality, and delivery cycle improvement strategies Case studies for applying appropriate decision situations to software process improvement Strategic guidelines for various business case analyses With this book in hand, you will find the facts, examples, hard data, and case studies needed for preparing your own winning business cases in today's complex software environment.

"Every senior executive needs to read this book." --Robert Musson Vice President, Business Strategy Cenus Technologies "An informative book for any business person (not just technologists) who has ever been associated or involved with a software development effort and thought 'there must be a better way!' Watts has provided that better way-- the PSP/TSP, and a great book." --Roy Kinkaid, Head of Continuous Improvement and Software Quality Assurance, EBS Dealing Resources Watts Humphrey is the well-known author of methods and models widely used by organizations, teams, and individuals to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of software development. In Winning with Software, he shows corporate executives and senior managers why software is both a business problem and a business opportunity. "This book is extremely well written and targets the right audience. I plan to buy a copy for each of my executives." --Kevin J. Berk, Director, Process Improvement, Total Quality Systems Humphrey, drawing on his own extensive executive and management experience, first demonstrates the critical importance of software to nearly every business, large and small. He then outlines seven steps needed to gain control of a software operation and transform it into a professional, businesslike engineering function. Failure to recognize the importance of software, and to take charge of its development process, runs the risk of damaging the entire business. By contrast, Humphrey relates the substantial benefits real organizations have obtained from such awareness and control, and he concludes with an analysis of the impressive financial returns the recommended transformations typically yield. "This is a great book that will play a valuable role. It has excellent anecdotes that illustrate the points being made, as well as good examples depicting the problems faced by teams and managers. I look forward to sharing it with my colleagues." --Steven Sliwa, President & CEO, Insitu Group Inc. and former President of Embry-Riddle University "The logical approach, the high level explanations, and the application of real-life experiences make the book not only credible but easily understood. If a large number of CEOs don't at least try out the book's concepts, I will be greatly surprised." --David Webb Software Engineering Project Manager, Hill Air Force Base

The role of a software engineer goes well beyond writing code. In many companies, large or small, engineers often need to understand unfamiliar business rules, and then coordinate with multiple groups to ship software within a tight schedule. Although the skills required to perform this job effectively can be hidden within one's years of experience, learning from mistakes, peer guidance, and available resources, are critical to success. This book summarizes the skills and practices effective engineers should leverage to excel at their job. A chapter is dedicated to each of the four main pillars that form a successful engineering career: Self-Management, Technical Discipline, Risk Management, and Strategic Teamwork. Topics covered within each pillar include insights and tips on how to enhance your career simply by making small changes in the way you work. Based on a collection of mentorship sessions from author Filipe Ximenes, Strategic Software Engineering will empower you to maximize the impact of your work. What You Will Learn Master skills beyond writing code to achieve career goals. Make your day-to day work more impactful through meaningful changes. Identify, mitigate, and manage risk. Leverage teamwork and collaboration to build successful products. Who This Book Is For Mid-level engineers looking to make the jump to senior roles, as well as experienced engineers and managers who are looking to bolster their careers

Explains the principles & practice of Business Engineering - a new approach to optimizing the organization of businesses & their computer systems by analyzing & repartitioning them by "business events" - the critical events in the environment to which they were set up to respond. Business event partitioning (the core of Business Engineering) re-orients a business for optimal response to critical business events. Business event partitioning also dramatically improves the cost-effectiveness of data processing by increasing the useful life-span of computer systems that support the business & by reducing development & modification costs. The methodology is presented graphically, using the rigor of Structured Analysis data flow diagrams (DFD's), supported by a comprehensive data dictionary & step-by-step activity descriptions. The diagrams are also included free on a personal computer diskette with a CASE tool created by the author's company for project planning & tracking. Also includes insightful chapters on "systems archealogy," how to build quality into computer systems, strategic planning, managing computer projects & people, risk analysis, project estimating & how to install new methodology, plus a full case study illustrating the Strategic Business Enginering principles. Essential reading for data processing managers, practitioners, students & their teachers.

Make Software Architecture Choices That Maximize Value and Innovation "[Vernon and Jaskuła] provide insights, tools, proven best practices, and architecture styles both from the business and engineering viewpoint. . . . This book deserves to become a must-read for practicing software engineers, executives as well as senior managers." --Michael Stal, Certified Senior Software Architect, Siemens Technology Strategic Monoliths and Microservices helps business decision-makers and technical team members clearly understand their strategic problems through collaboration and identify optimal architectural approaches, whether the approach is distributed microservices, well-modularized monoliths, or coarser-grained services partway between the two. Leading software architecture experts Vaughn Vernon and Tomasz Jaskuła show how to make balanced architectural decisions based on need and purpose, rather than hype, so you can promote value and innovation, deliver more evolvable systems, and avoid costly mistakes. Using realistic examples, they show how to construct well-designed monoliths that are maintainable and extensible, and how to gradually redesign and reimplement even the most tangled legacy systems into truly effective microservices. Link software architecture planning to business innovation and digital transformation Overcome communication problems to promote experimentation and discovery-based innovation Master practices that support your value-generating goals and help you invest more strategically Compare architectural styles that can lead to versatile, adaptable applications and services Recognize when monoliths are your best option and how best to architect, design, and implement them Learn when to move monoliths to microservices and how to do it, whether they're modularized or a "Big Ball of Mud" Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Model-Driven Software Development (MDSD) is currently a highly regarded development paradigm among developers and researchers. With the advent of OMG's MDA and Microsoft's Software Factories, the MDSD approach has moved to the centre of the programmer's attention, becoming the focus of conferences such as OOPSLA, JAOO and OOP. MDSD is about using domain-specific languages to create models that express application structure or behaviour in an efficient and domain-specific way. These models are subsequently transformed into executable code by a sequence of model transformations. This practical guide for software architects and developers is peppered with practical examples and extensive case studies. International experts deliver: * A comprehensive overview of MDSD and how it relates to industry standards such as MDA and Software Factories. * Technical details on meta modeling, DSL construction, model-to-model and model-to-code transformations, and software architecture. * Invaluable insight into the software development process, plus engineering issues such as versioning, testing and product line engineering. * Essential management knowledge covering economic and organizational topics, from a global perspective. Get started and benefit from some practical support along the way!

A study of one of the key issues in the design and development of IT systems: the fact that the bulk of system development projects undertaken will fail to meet originally defined objectives. Using a number of case studies, the book analyses the reasons for this poor performance and provides readers with a pattern of well-defined failure mechanisms which are especially relevant to large, long-term projects. With these established, it then generates a set of planning procedures and corporate guidelines which will substantially reduce the impact and probability of financial and performance disasters in future projects.

An immensely practical resource for professionals in the software industry, this text offers a simple but effective decision-making approach to planning and managing all types of software engineering projects. The book establishes a constructive framework for selecting a development strategy, development methods, and support tools with the ultimate goal of minimizing technical risk and increasing product quality. Specific topics include the range of quality attributes (fitness for purpose, fitness for use, and timely delivery), standards for quality management systems, the work breakdown structure, and the use of metrics and indicators. The book closes with a discussion of the 14 dilemmas of software engineering--and how to break them.