More Process Patterns: Delivering Large-Scale Systems Using Object Technology (SIGS: Managing Object Technology) [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

I really liked his idea of assessing your staff once your software is baselined for his "testing in the large." I think its exactly as he says, that developers will stick it out until the current release is ready to go out the door and then leave for greener pastures. By assessing them and investing the time to do career management you increase the chance of keeping your staff.

I also liked his treatment of how to release the software, he's one of the few people that seem to recognize that you have to release software to your operations department, your support department, and to your end users. Once again, not rocket science but something that is often overlooked until the last minute.

A strength of the book is the Maintain & Support phase. I've done software support before and it's a bitch. It's about time somebody finally wrote about it and told people how hard it actually is. Including Maintenance & Support in your software process is really important in my mind.

Just like the author points out, the best developers take maintenance into consideration, the best project managers must also take into consideration how their software will be supported too. This philosophy is a big strength over the Unified Process in my mind because the full spectrum of the software lifecycle is taken into account, not just development. The author's "Identify Defects and Enhancement" stage process pattern is really just basic change control once your software is out the door but once again he did a really good job of saying how to do it.

Another strength of the book is that it is based on real-world experience -- this stuff sounds to me like it would actually work. The book also has a solid foundation in theory, bringing both proven and theoretical practices together in an effective manner.

I also liked chapter 10 because it summarizes key project management issues, such as training and education of your staff, risk management, metrics, quality assurance, and risk management from both Process Patterns and this book, More Process Patterns. These are all important issues that must be taken into account to succeed. In fact, for many people this book is a good buy just to get this chapter alone.

The one thing that I don't like is that you really do need to buy two books, this one and the one before it, Process Patterns, to get a full picture of the overall software process. However, both books are pretty big and they both contain excellent information so its not such a bad thing in the end.

First, to appreciate this book's approach it is important to know what OOSP and patterns are - this will set your expectations about the book and what you can get from it.

OOSP stands for Object-Oriented Software Process. It is an approach to software development within the context of object-orientation. Put another way, it is an object oriented approach to application delivery. Both of my definitions fall short, but if you are familiar with the unified modeling language (UML) or the Rational Unified Process (both of which are nearly inescapable judging from the sheer volume of literature on both subjects) then you will get the idea.

Patterns are like templates for actions and activities. Using a pattern assures a high degree of consistency in presenting a collection of activities, and also allows you to distill the key elements of a particular process into a succinct format. What I especially like about the concept of patterns is that provide a "container" into which you can capture best practices for any process.

This book presents a set of patterns for the final stages of application delivery (i.e., software development)and segues directly into service delivery. The patterns grouped into phases that roughly follow the Rational Unified Process, and the phases are further grouped into stages.

From the application delivery point of view, the processes are: test and rework. The bridge to service delivery is provided in the release stage processes. From there the processes are firmly in the service delivery domain, starting with the assess stage, and moving into the maintain and support phase. One of the best parts of this book from a service delivery practitioner's point of view is the "Identify Defects and Enhancements". This if often overlooked in the body of literature for applications and service delivery (but is a key process in software quality assurance). The patterns associated with this stage are an ideal vehicle to communicate operational requirements from service delivery back to application delivery.

I also liked the project and cross-project tasks that are presented in this book. As the co-developer of the Tarrani-Zarate Information Technology Management Model one of the fuzzy areas was the link between maintenance and support and the project-related tasks. This section clarified some of the dependencies and linkages.

What did this book do for me? As a service delivery practitioner it gave me a clear understanding of the potential synergies that can be achieved if application and service delivery are treated as a coherent whole. It also heavily influenced my thoughts when developing the Tarrani-Zarate model, and refined my view of service delivery. It also showed the value and power of employing patterns for capturing best practices. As such, this book is probably of value to knowledge management practitioners.

What does this mean to you? It depends on your role. If your role is project manager, in development or QA/test, then the process patterns provided will underscore the fact that development is not complete until the product is in production. If you are in production control, production support or applications support (help desk, tier 2 or 3), then this book provides some excellent ideas on how to "connect" service delivery to application delivery. If you are a project sponsor or business process owner, the defects and enhancement stages are a good starting point for understanding your role on a configuration control board at the project or product management level.

The author sums up the key point of this book with a quote from his web page: "A good developer knows that there is more to development than programming. A great developer knows that there is more to development than development." To paraphrase, development isn't what it is about - it's about delivering functions to business users so they can do their job. This book provides ideas and tools to do this.

Highlights:

- All processes are cataloged by life cycle milestone and presented in pattern format for quick reference and consistency.

- The author provides an excellent tutorial on patterns in the front of the book.

- Will work with any life cycle model (waterfall, spiral, iterative, etc.).

The material is well thought out and complete. I was impressed at the depth and detail in each of the patterns, and am gratified that someone has taken the time to write a book that covers what happens after development. If you are working in the Rational Unified Process environment you may want to consider, instead, the author's newer book titled "The Unified Process Transition and Production Phases" (ISBN 0521652626), which contains the same material, but aligns it to the Unified Process (the book calls it the Enterprise Unified Process, but it's essentially the RUP).