This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 2005). Take Control of Your Project in the Final Stage of Software Development In software development, projects are won or lost during the project endgame-that final stage of software development between release for testing and release to customers. Software Endgames: Eliminating Defects, Controlling Change, and the Countdown to On-Time Delivery presents the core strategies for delivering working software to your customers. Focusing solely on the endgame, the book provides hard-won, hands-on strategies and practices for delivering real value. In the endgame, effective management and repair of defects is crucial. Experienced project manager and consultant Robert Galen shows readers how to conduct effective defect triage -- analyzing, understanding, and categorizing defects-in preparation for scheduling repairs. Readers will learn how to transform the endgame from a time of rampant defects and utter chaos into a time of focused repairs, effective teamwork, and change management. You'll set release criteria, establish endgame release plans, and utilize a variety of change reduction and endgame management techniques. Topics include developing various forms of release criteria and leveraging them to guide your teams' efforts strategies for reducing the rate of change change control and triage techniques that lead to efficient and effective defect repair decisions alternative methods of defect repair for decision-making flexibility setting up a defect-tracking system, managing defects and gathering standard metrics for endgame defect trending techniques for repair planning and efficiency agile extensions -- how to apply these techniques to agile projects how to "mine" your endgames for overall software development improvements.

'New (4th) and improved edition of an all-time classic The good news about endgames is: • there are relatively few endings you should know by heart • once you know these endings, that's it. Your knowledge never goes out of date! The bad news is that, all the same, the endgame technique of most players is deficient. Modern time-controls make matters worse: there is simply not enough time to delve deep into the position. Jesus de la Vila debunks the myth that endgame theory is complex and he teaches you to steer the game into a position you are familiar with. This book contains only those endgames that: • show up most frequently • are easy to learn • contain ideas that are useful in more difficult positions. Your performance will improve dramatically because this book brings you: • simple rules • detailed and lively explanations • many diagrams • clear summaries of the most important themes • dozens of tests.

This Seventh Edition of Donald Reifer's popular, bestselling tutorial summarizes what software project managers need to know to be successful on the job. The text provides pointers and approaches to deal with the issues, challenges, and experiences that shape their thoughts and performance. To accomplish its goals, the volume explores recent advances in dissimilar fields such as management theory, acquisition management, globalization, knowledge management, licensing, motivation theory, process improvement, organization dynamics, subcontract management, and technology transfer. Software Management provides software managers at all levels of the organization with the information they need to know to develop their software engineering management strategies for now and the future. The book provides insight into management tools and techniques that work in practice. It also provides sufficient instructional materials to serve as a text for a course in software management. This new edition achieves a balance between theory and practical experience. Reifer systematically addresses the skills, knowledge, and abilities that software managers, at any level of experience, need to have to practice their profession effectively. This book contains original articles by leaders in the software management field written specifically for this tutorial, as well as a collection of applicable reprints. About forty percent of the material in this edition has been produced specifically for the tutorial. Contents: * Introduction * Life Cycle Models * Process Improvement * Project Management * Planning Fundamentals * Software Estimating * Organizing for Success * Staffing Essentials * Direction Advice * Visibility and Control * Software Risk Management * Metrics and Measurement * Acquisition Management * Emerging Management Topics "The challenges faced by software project managers are the gap between what the customers can envision and the reality on the ground and how to deal with the risks associated with this gap in delivering a product that meets requirements on time and schedule at the target costs. This tutorial hits the mark by providing project managers, practitioners, and educators with source materials on how project managers can effectively deal with this risk." -Dr. Kenneth E. Nidiffer, Systems & Software Consortium, Inc. "The volume has evolved into a solid set of foundation works for anyone trying to practice software management in a world that is increasingly dependent on software release quality, timeliness, and productivity." -Walker Royce, Vice President, IBM Software Services-Rational

A comprehensive, practical book on software management that dispels real-world issues through relevant case studies Software managers inevitably will meet obstacles while trying to deliver quality products and provide value to customers, often with tight time restrictions. The result: Software War Stories. This book provides readers with practical advice on how to handle the many issues that can arise as a software project unfolds. It utilizes case studies that focus on what can be done to establish and meet reasonable expectations as they occur in government, industrial, and academic settings. The book also offers important discussions on both traditional and agile methods as well as lean development concepts. Software War Stories: Covers the basics of management as applied to situations ranging from agile projects to large IT projects with infrastructure problems Includes coverage of topics ranging from planning, estimating, and organizing to risk and opportunity management Uses twelve case studies to communicate lessons learned by the author in practice Offers end-of-chapter exercises, sample solutions, and a blog for providing updates and answers to readers' questions Software War Stories: Case Studies in Software Management mentors practitioners, software engineers, students and more, providing relevant situational examples encountered when managing software projects and organizations.

The highly competitive and globalized software market is creating pressure on software companies. Given the current boundary conditions, it is critical to continuously increase time-to-market and reduce development costs. In parallel, driven by private life experiences with mobile computing devices, the World Wide Web and software-based services, peoples’ general expectations with regards to software are growing. They expect software that is simple and joyful to use. In the light of the changes that have taken place in recent years, software companies need to fundamentally reconsider the way they develop and deliver software to their customers. This book introduces fundamentals, trends and best practices in the software industry from a threefold perspective which equally takes into account design, management, and development of software. It demonstrates how cross-functional integration can be leveraged by software companies to successfully build software for people. Professionals from business and academia give an overview on state-of-the-art knowledge and report on key insights from their real-life experience. They provide guidance and hands-on recommendation on how to create winning products. This combined perspective fosters the transfer of knowledge between research and practice and offers a high practical value for both sides. The book targets both, practitioners and academics looking for successfully building software in the future. It is directed at Managing Directors of software companies, Software Project Managers, Product Managers and Designers, Software Developers as well as academics and students in the area of Software and Information Systems Engineering, Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and Innovation Management.​

Software Maintenance Success Recipes identifies actionable formulas for success based on in-depth analysis of more than 200 real-world maintenance projects. It details the set of factors that are usually present when effective software maintenance teams do their work and instructs on the methods required to achieve success. Donald J. Reifer-an award winner for his contributions to the field of software engineering-provides step-by-step guidance on how to structure the job to complete all of the work related to the task.

This is the 68th volume (supplement 31) in a series which examines library and information science.

In this companion volume to Fundamental Chess Endings, M�ller and Pajeken focus on the practical side of playing endgames. They cover all aspects of strategic endgames, with particular emphasis on thinking methods, and ways to create difficulties for opponents over the board. Using hundreds of outstanding examples from modern practice, the authors explain not only how to conduct 'classical' endgame tasks, such as exploiting an extra pawn or more active pieces, but also how to handle the extremely unbalanced endings that often arise from the dynamic openings favoured nowadays. All varieties of endgames are covered, and there are more than 200 exercises for the reader, together with full solutions. Major topics include: * Basic Principles and Methods * Activity * Schematic Thinking * The Fight for the Initiative * Prophylaxis and Preventing Counterplay * The Bishop-Pair in the Endgame * Domination * The Art of Defence * Typical Mistakes * Rules of Thumb

This volume investigates automated scheduling and course scheduling at the University of Waikato to traffic control for real-time VBR services in ATM network.

The Daunting Domain of Queen Endgames Explained! Knowing the abilities and limitations of the powerful queen is very valuable for mastering the secrets of the royal game, and this can be studied best in the endgame. Queen endgames are very difficult, if only for purely mathematical reasons – the queen is the most mobile peace in chess, and the amount of possible options is incomparably higher than in any other type of endgames. This book follows a dual philosophy as in the three previous works by the same authors: Understanding Rook Endgames, Understanding Minor Piece Endgames and Understanding Rook vs. Minor Piece Endgames. The 7-piece endings are dealt with in great detail. They are often so complex that pre-tablebase analysis almost always contains errors. Many new discoveries are revealed here. But to really understand the fight of a queen against a queen or minor pieces with rooks, these theoretical positions are of course not enough. So subchapters on the principles of each material configuration have been added. All in all, this fantastic book is already on my (very short) “must study” list for chessplayers of different levels, including the top ten! I want to thank the authors for the courage which is required just to start working on such a complex topic, as well as for the very high quality of their work, which will endure for decades to come and will be very useful for many future generations of chessplayers. – from the Foreword by Vladimir Kramnik,14th World Chess Champion