The Business Manager's Guide to Software Projects: A Framework for Decision-Making, Team Collaboration, and Effectiveness

Every day, successful software projects scale and sustain businesses of all sizes and across all industries. Unfortunately, the reality is that many software projects still fail. The reasons behind these failures are seldom due to the underlying technology. Misunderstandings and communication barriers lead to wrong decisions, missed opportunities, communication breakdowns, or worse--huge economic loss.

In this digitally connected world, business professionals can't afford to be hands-off on technical projects, but they also can't be expected to have technical certifications. They have first-hand knowledge of the business processes, are subject matter experts in software requirements, and they finance the projects. Even C-level management or board members need to rapidly gain just enough understanding of technology to make mission-critical decisions for businesses to survive and flourish. In most software projects the number of non-technical stakeholders far exceeds the number of techies.

This book distills the world of software projects into simple terms and relatable metaphors for even the most technically adverse reader. Real-life examples, entertaining analogies, and hand-drawn illustrations will stick with readers throughout their own software projects, bolstering their success. Business requirements, use cases, process flows--the list goes on. It's all broken down in this game-changing book aimed at delivering for business and tech teams what DevOps has done for developers and operations.

What You Will Learn

• Know the importance of good business requirements and how to write them
• Identify the most important business roles, key decisions, and critical activities involved in software projects
• Strengthen collaboration between non-technical and technical teams
• Grasp common software project terminology, required for non-techies
• Understand the software development life cycle
• Gain insight on the common software project methodologies and how they differ
• Understand what software developers do at a high level

Who This Book Is For

Non-technical business professionals (such as small business owners, startup founders, or employees of a business of any size or industry) who need to secure and implement a software solution. The reader may supervise or collaborate with technical teams, and may be a (beginning) software developer looking for practical insights and better ways to communicate with business colleagues.

每天，成功的軟體專案都能夠推動各種規模和行業的企業擴張和持續發展。不幸的是，現實情況是許多軟體專案仍然失敗。這些失敗的原因很少是由於底層技術的問題。誤解和溝通障礙導致了錯誤的決策、錯失機會、溝通中斷，甚至更糟糕的是巨大的經濟損失。

在這個數位連接的世界中，商業專業人士不能對技術專案置之不理，但也不能期望他們具備技術認證。他們對業務流程有第一手的了解，是軟體需求的專家，並且他們負責專案的財務。即使是高層管理人員或董事會成員也需要迅速獲得足夠的技術理解，以便為企業的生存和繁榮做出關鍵性決策。在大多數軟體專案中，非技術利益相關者的數量遠超過技術人員的數量。

這本書將軟體專案的世界以簡單易懂的術語和可關聯的比喻呈現給即使對技術感到抗拒的讀者。真實案例、有趣的類比和手繪插圖將陪伴讀者在他們自己的軟體專案中，增強其成功。商業需求、使用案例、流程圖等等，這本改變遊戲規則的書籍將為商業和技術團隊提供與DevOps為開發人員和運營人員所做的相同的成果。

你將學到什麼：
- 了解良好的商業需求的重要性以及如何撰寫它們
- 確定軟體專案中最重要的商業角色、關鍵決策和關鍵活動
- 加強非技術和技術團隊之間的合作
- 掌握非技術人員所需的常見軟體專案術語
- 理解軟體開發生命週期
- 瞭解常見的軟體專案方法論及其差異
- 了解軟體開發人員在高層次上所做的工作

適合閱讀對象：
非技術的商業專業人士（如小企業所有者、初創公司創辦人或任何規模或行業的企業員工），他們需要確保並實施軟體解決方案。讀者可能監督或與技術團隊合作，也可能是（初級）軟體開發人員，尋求實用的見解和與商業同事更好地溝通的方法。

Jonathan Peter Crosby is a software developer, performance engineer, and consultant who has worked in the field for over 20 years. Having gained his professional experience at a range of companies from startups to blue-chips, he also founded and co-founded three small tech companies--the first one at the age of 33. Jonathan works at the crossroads of technology and business. The best project outcome, he finds, is achieved through sharing the business and technical knowledge--a reason that he likes to involve all team members in important project decisions. Jonathan believes that effective communication is the cornerstone of every successful software project.

Jonathan Peter Crosby是一位軟體開發人員、性能工程師和顧問，他在這個領域已經工作了超過20年。他在從初創公司到大型企業的各種公司中獲得了專業經驗，並且在33歲時創辦和共同創辦了三家小型科技公司。Jonathan在技術和商業的交叉路口工作。他發現，最好的項目成果是通過分享商業和技術知識來實現的，這也是他喜歡讓所有團隊成員參與重要項目決策的原因。Jonathan相信，有效的溝通是每個成功的軟體項目的基石。