Just Enough Project Management

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version.

The #1 guide to excellence in documentation—now completely updated! A systematic, proven approach to creating great documentation

• Thoroughly revised and updated
• More practical examples
• More coverage of topic-based information, search, and internationalization

Direct from IBM's own documentation experts, this is the definitive guide to developing outstanding technical documentation—for the Web and for print. Using extensive before-and-after examples, illustrations, and checklists, the authors show exactly how to create documentation that's easy to find, understand, and use. This edition includes extensive new coverage of topic-based information, simplifying search and retrievability, internationalization, visual effectiveness, and much more.

Coverage includes:

• Focusing on the tasks and topics users care about most
• Saying more with fewer words
• Using organization and other means to deliver faster access to information
• Presenting information in more visually inviting ways
• Improving the effectiveness of your review process
• Learning from example: sample text, screen captures, illustrations, tables, and much more

Whether you're a writer, editor, designer, or reviewer, if you want to create great documentation, this book shows you how!

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version.

• Writing for wikis and encouraging wiki collaboration
• Creating screencasts, using screencast terminology, and guidelines for writing narration
• Creating alternative text for nontext elements such as screen captures, multimedia content, illustrations, and diagrams

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version.

Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves.

The authors begin by describing what patterns are and how they can help you design object-oriented software. They then go on to systematically name, explain, evaluate, and catalog recurring designs in object-oriented systems. With Design Patterns as your guide, you will learn how these important patterns fit into the software development process, and how you can leverage them to solve your own design problems most efficiently.

Each pattern describes the circumstances in which it is applicable, when it can be applied in view of other design constraints, and the consequences and trade-offs of using the pattern within a larger design. All patterns are compiled from real systems and are based on real-world examples. Each pattern also includes code that demonstrates how it may be implemented in object-oriented programming languages like C++ or Smalltalk.

"If the purpose is to create one of the best books on requirements yet written, the authors have succeeded."

—Capers Jones

It is widely recognized that incorrect requirements account for up to 60 percent of errors in software products, and yet the majority of software development organizations do not have a formal requirements process. Many organizations appear willing to spend huge amounts on fixing and altering poorly specified software, but seem unwilling to invest a much smaller amount to get the requirements right in the first place.

Mastering the Requirements Process, Second Edition, sets out an industry-proven process for gathering and verifying requirements with an eye toward today's agile development environments. In this total update of the bestselling guide, the authors show how to discover precisely what the customer wants and needs while doing the minimum requirements work according to the project's level of agility.

Features include

• The Volere requirements process—completely specified, and revised for compatibility with agile environments

• A specification template that can be used as the basis for your own requirements specifications

• New agility ratings that help you funnel your efforts into only the requirements work needed for your particular development environment and project

• How to make requirements testable using fit criteria

• Iterative requirements gathering leading to faster delivery to the client

• Checklists to help identify stakeholders, users, nonfunctional requirements, and more

• Details on gathering and implementing requirements for iterative releases

• An expanded project sociology section for help with identifying and communicating with stakeholders

• Strategies for exploiting use cases to determine the best product to build

• Methods for reusing requirements and requirements patterns

• Examples showing how the techniques and templates are applied in real-world situations