This is the best book on software project management I’ve ever read. And it isn’t even a book on software project management.

I think most project managers don’t really understand they are in the design factory. Few large companies can identify their projects in inventory, understand their opportunity costs, or have any idea which queues are blocking progress. Once you understand the economic underpinnings of project management, decision become easier and often new organizational structures are easier to imagine. If the topic has any relevance to your area of employment, I think it will give you a leg up, as long as you have the means to implement the ideas it gives you.

This book came doubly recommended to me, and it didn’t disappoint. If you want to inspect the foundations and the future of agile and lean methods, they are here. Sometimes disguised as lessons from automotive or airplane design, this book is a well written and readable tour of lean principles.

The whole first half of the book (parts one and two) is top-notch. A few of the gems: the explaination of queuing theory (ch 3), early quality vs. late learning (pg 13-6), works expands to fill time available (pg 18), the importance of small increments and short iterations for information generation and learning (ch 4), and the explaination of closed feedback loops with thermostat example (pg 87-89).

The rest of the book builds on these foundations. Possibly because it’s not necessarily software-specific, the rest of the book had gems every few pages, but went slow.

Partly by design, I was reading Lean Software
Development by Popendieck (2003) somewhat concurrently with Managing the Design Factory (1997).

Overall, if you’re in software and need to “get to work”, I’d recommend first reading Poppendieck (it’s already informed by Reinertsen), but Reinertsen is a close second with excellent background.

Recommended this by an ex-director of our department. The introduction so far sounds promising—though I don’t know what queueing theory is I get the feeling that I’m going to find out.