Object-Oriented Project Management with UML

This was very useful for me to get a tactical grip on OO proj mgmt. Has a very good intro and is designed in modules to allow you to read based on your specific role in the group. Always recommend this to customers who are trying to move to iterative development.

I found this book very useful because it covered UML nicely, and did so in the context of real-world project management scenarios. The book is full of useful tips on how to improve your next PM experience.

Murray Cantor's Object-Oriented Project Management with UML is of value to both the young manager looking for guidance and the seasoned manager looking to ground one's practices. The book is an engaging read that blends best practices with personal opinions. The author is careful to distinguish his personal opinions from the rest of the text and is conscientious to appropriately cite the work of others. Some 70 plus references are listed in the bibliography. In fact, what comes across is Mr. Cantor would prefer software managers to have a repertoire of books on one's shelf. I myself keep returning to Walker Royce's Software Project Management, a Unified Framework, Grady Booch, James Rumbaugh, and Ivar Jacobson's The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, as well as Mr. Cantor's O-O Project Management. Managing great software teams within projects is tough in today's environment of complex solutions, anxious customers, and shrinking time-to-markets. It takes more than just common sense. It requires a game plan and an awareness of when to be flexible. Mr. Cantor lays out a series of methods that focuses on attacking project complexity, leveraging team dynamics, and what needs to be accomplished when in the controlled, iterative development lifecycle. The underlying theme is risk management. Software projects will likely be adventurous for the foreseeable future as we seek ever larger scale systems, but if more engineers and customers were grounded in the techniques espoused by this book a lot more businesses would achieve their goals.

This no-nonsense book is a must read for the project manager of large software systems who embraces - or is contemplating embracing - object-based development. Cantor skillfully shares a plethora of knowledge, experience and wisdom for planning, buiding, tracking and delivering your next software product

The UML is an OO notation that has many views. I have been following developments in the UML for about two years now, awaiting the acceptance of the industry. You see, the UML by itself is not a software development methodology. It is simply a collection of notations and views of software development. Dr.Cantor's book takes the UML in the direction of a solid project management methodology by applying a minimal set of OO notations, views and other techniques. The major view in his methodology (and rightfully in my mind) is the use case because it is easily understood by anyone (even your grandmother). Surprisingly, he extends the application of use cases to multiple levels (user, developer, and package) and as a result provides a technique that should actively engage the client throughout the life-cycle of the project. As a practical matter, he ties the use cases back to the design artifacts that OO developers create on their way to writing code. Without these artifacts (class diagrams, sequence diagrams, and methods) and the source code, the use cases are merely documentation. His methodology is well rounded and also minimal. Thus, the project manager does not need to design the entire project to make estimates of effort and time. In addition, it is clear from his real world examples, the simulator case study, and suggestions for project reports, forms, and graphs that he speaks from the experience of having tested his OO methodology on medium and large scale systems. If you are a practicing software developer, a project manager, or a wanabee project manager, or like me, a college instructor, and are interested in learning how to apply OO techniques to project management, this book is for you.