This book does a few things well and trhen does them well again. It is humourous, readable and funny .. oh and practical too. Some what a cross between Dilbert, How to win friends and influence people and the one minute manager series.

This book sets up its chapters to mirror a typical development project scenario from inception to delivery. Each chapter looks at managements needs verses developer needs and how to manage the process of ensuring both sides get what they want.

Chris Duncan rightly points out the coders tend be artists who want to code great code in a perfect environment with little regards to the financial relaities of business. He conversely points out that business people (who pay us to code ) have agendas based on making a profit (which keeps us in paid employment) and that neither side is wrong. His basic approach is, ‘Developers live in a business environment dedicated to making money. business managers pay the bills, they call the shots. Get over it and learn how to become saavy enough to survive this reality’.

He also points out that business managers tend to set the development deadlines, decide on the scope, create the scope creep and then fire those who fail to meet their demands. He believes that is our fault as coders for not communicating in an understable way that business managers understand and can relate too. If we can become saavy enough to talk to them in ways they understand ($ and cents) then we have a better chance of managing our projects through to a successful, and non-burn out, completion while also maintaining a life along the way.

Using this as his base line he then gives a set of anecdotes, ideas, stories and humourous observations on the mis-communications that occur between managment (who pays for projects) and the coding teams (who develop the projects). It uses a commonly recognised cast of characters to show how various people interact and where the gaps are that cause long hours of coding to meet impossible deadlines and unstoppable scope creep can occur. he then gives some pragmatic ideas on how to avoid, plug, disarm or minmise these problem areas so both sides have a win / win situation.

What this book doesn’t do.

1 - It doesn’t attempt to give a magical cure for all develop project ailments in the corporate world, rather it tries to give guidence on the best way to deal with those ailments in a way that meets managmeents needs and avoids personal burnout.

2 - This book is not a book designed to make you a better project manager. It is a book designed to help you be a better coder working in the business world. Become more business needs aware and you will become a better coder. You may even get your life back.

3 - It does not espouse a new project development methodology and it does not give negative ways to sabotage, goof off or earn money for nothing. Rather it looks ways of lubricating the interactions between managmeent and coders so both sides get what they want.

It is funny, readble, accurate and disturbingly familiar (expecially the VDU through the fourth floor window scenario … I am sure I never told my shrink about that particular fantasy).

So why a four and not a five? I worked in the Govt sector doing project development and unfortunately this book was of no use to me in that situation. govt managers ar not money minded and generally have no accountability so the ideas her present no leverege points that help in that situation. Had the book been called The CORPORATE Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World, Second Edition (Expert’s Voice) then the fifth star would have applied. Sorry chris but no one is perfect

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