Practitioners Books

Wilkinson, et al, provide short chapters that lay out the basic tools of research in a clear, concise manner. The subject headings and in-set boxes with lists and examples are immensely helpful.

If you buy one book on the practical side of developing an awareness of RtI and facilitating implementation, this is it! Well organized and user friendly, even to those who are not clear on how it will be used in their setting. From one principal to another - this book is a must as you move through the 3 tiers.

It is an excellent book for those, who want to be up-to-date in his work as anesthetist for outpatient and dentist clinics. The problem list of the book is short, but complete and concrete. Nothing to add. Very useful book in everyday practice.

This book is wonderful! It was written by 3 educators who actually worked through the process of SLC's and portfolios. There have been many differant approaches to this subject, but this is the first one that makes sense to me! I feel ready to get started now! Lynn McCollum Middle School teacher

The Practitioner's Guide is a career assessment tool and the major reference book for Holland Codes and occupations.

Holland Career Materials: A Practitioner's Guide is a book that provides practical applications for the Holland Code Career Model. The Holland Career Materials: A Practitioner's Guide discusses -

* Introduction to Holland RIASEC Model
* Relationship to other career theories, e.g. Cognitive Information Processing (CIP)
* Detailed descriptions, comparisons, and uses of the four SDS forms (R,E, CP, and CE)
* Other Holland Code career guidance materials

As a teacher coming into the area for the first time, I found this absolutely invaluable. A must-buy

This book contains 170 information-packed pages that describe a comprehensive and effective approach to managing software development risks.

The approach is based on a just-in-time (JIT) strategy. Key elements of this strategy include (1) strategic planning and operational planning, the former is focused on product-line based software and makes a distinction between the software under development being the product itself or a part of the product, and the latter is focused on project planning and controls; (2) early risk identification, and (3) parallel development. When this book was first published parallel development was a complex goal; however, with component-based development strategies the approach is ideal. Perhaps the author was ahead of his time.

Some of the best chapters in this book are: Chapter 4 - provides excellent insights and advice on managing the strategic and operational elements of the JIT strategy, Chapter 5 - comprehensive list of software risk elements and Chapter 7 - another comprehensive list that covers risk metrics.

Chapter 8 describes the JIT method as it applies to each phase in the software development life cycle. This chapter contains valuable tables that can be used as checklists in your own project, and is full of useful information that can be applied to project risk management regardless of whether or not you implement the JIT approach described in this book. Chapter 9 shows how to apply the JIT approach to a project. This chapter is short is really a brief summary of the software engineering risk model (SERIM) from which the JIT approach was derived. Chapter 10 is a collection of JIT examples that can easily be recast into patterns. I especially like the way these examples clarify the information in preceding nine chapters. I recommend that you refer to this chapter as you read through the book because there will almost certainly be an example that will illustrate any fuzzy areas.

This is one of my favorite books on risk management in general and software risk management in particular. The information and approach are not limited to software engineering, although the book was obviously written for that technical domain. I have borrowed techniques from this book and have successfully applied them in other kinds of projects, as I am sure you will. I give it 5 stars and a strong recommendation.

Software Standards is a developing field for most companies. It is a jungle out there, and the number of books about the subject is huge and growing. This book attempts (and succeeds in my humble opinion) to show a clear path for those who seek to manage the chaos of software engineering. However, I also recommend getting the IEEE book as reference, ISBN 1-55937-898-0, although this book includes most of what you'll need.

With exceptions that I've noted below this is an in-depth examination of standards, initiatives and methods for software process improvement (SPI) and software process assessment (SPA).

The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of which contains two or more papers written by top experts in the field, including Mark Paulk (of CMM fame), Watts S. Humphrey (creator of PSP and TSP, and prolific author of software engineering process papers), Robert B. Grady (author of three standard references on metrics), and others who key players, but are not as widely known outside of the SPI and SPA community.

Chapter 1 covers software process assessment with an article by Paulk that surveys the more common models for SPI and SPA, and a reprint of Sarah Sheard's excellent article from CrossTalk Magazine titled "The Frameworks Quagmire". Chapter 2 contains three articles on the SW-CMM, which seems to be the centerpiece of this book. Chapter 3, "Other Approaches to Software Process Assessment" contains four articles that add balance by covering non-CMM approaches that are in common use, especially in Europe (Bootstrap). I especially liked the article by David N. Card titled "Sorting out Six Sigma and the CMM", which combines two hot topics. One of the exceptions that I cited at the beginning of this review is the article on Trillium, which in my opinion has been superseded by TL 9000 in the telecommunications industry.

The three articles in Chapter 4 (Software Process Improvement: How To Do It) address common concerns and barriers to any SPI initiative, and each add well thought out ideas, especially Sandra McGill's "Overcoming Resistance to Standard Processes, or, Herding Cats", and William Florac's "Statistically Managing the Software Process".

Watts Humphrey's Personal and Team Software Processes, and CMMI are the key topics in Chapter 5, which covers developments inspired by the SW-CMM. All of Chapter 6's Software Product Evaluation articles were my favorites from among the collection in this book, and I particularly liked Jørgen Bøegh's "Quality Evaluation of Software Products" and Geoff Dromey's "A Model for Software Product Quality" because they go to the heart of key issues in both product line engineering challenges and user acceptance testing.

Chapter 7, ISO 9000 Series and TickIT, is the second exception that I previously noted. Much has changed in ISO 9000 with the 2000 standard, which renders this entire chapter moot in my opinion. I also thought the five articles in Chapter 8, The SPICE Project, would have been a better fit in Chapter 3. The same goes for Chapter 9, Experiences of Software Process Assessment, which is nearly an extension of Chapter 8, and is closely related to Chapter 3.

Two other favorite chapters are 10 (Software Process Improvement for Small Organizations) and 11 (Benefits of Software Process Improvement). Chapter 10's three articles dispell any notion that SPI is only feasible for large organizations, and the three articles in Chapter 11 focus on the benefits of SPI, especially Herb Krasner's article titled "Accumulating the Body of Evidence for the Payoff of Software Process Improvement". I also liked the final chapter, which covers software processes in general, including an excellent article on modeling. I felt that this chapter should have been at the beginning of the book instead of the end.

Overall, this is a book for those of us who are nearly religious about SPI; but is not a good introductory text. It's main value will be to IT consultants who specialize in either SPI or SPA (or both), and who need to be familiar with the mainstream standards and approaches.

This is a very good book, covering a breadthof topics for software qa people of all levelsand all ranges of experience. Ernest has taken the time to catalog many successful methods, tips, techniques, and arguments.