Review By: Herb Ford Jr.
03/12/2010Had I read this book three and a half years ago I would have classified it as golden and timely. At that time, I started a new quality assurance department in a company that did not have a formal QA process, and I would have welcomed some additional insight to best practices on starting and implementing a new department. Do not get me wrong: this book is not aimed only at QA infrastructure. It can prove useful to upper level IT management who want to gain best practices and insight on how to improve a process or implement a new one. Keep in mind that if each component of a company does not understand the need for a better process, the end result will always be the same: late projects, unsatisfied clients, and poor performance.

The shelf life for this book is at least one to three years without the need for a revised edition; however, it could always be used as a reference after the lifespan has ended. It normally takes one to three years before one can see the fruits of their labor in terms of starting a brand new department or large scale process improvement.

There are five chapters dedicated to project management. While there is a need for a group to oversee the entire process, it would have been more effective for the author to show the value of the project management office (PMO) as it relates to process improvement instead of the details behind it. Aside from the chapters dedicated to PMO, the author does a good job illustrating the value and the changes needed to improve a process to the non PMO departments. I found good value in that. Sometimes we are force fed changes without truly understanding the need for them. This book does a good job explaining some of these changes.

My overall opinion of the book is this: once you dig into it, you will find what you need. There is a great deal of information in this book that could be shared across department lines. I would be not surprised if this is a book that is shared and never returned.