Process Quality Assurance for UML-Based Projects

Rating:
Summary: Practising Quality Professional's Viewpoint
Review: As a quality manager employed at a very large global IT Player organization, I immensely appreciated the value of this book. I like the practical approach adopted by the author.

I especially liked the conceptual framework provided to levels of quality (Section 1.3); often these aspects are not realized as most of the time the industry emphasis seems to be on code quality only. Other particularly appreciated sections are: connection of modeling with quality (1.5), Re-use patterns (1.9), Quality Management (2.1) and Process Architecture for Quality (Chapter 3) We have used some of the quality techniques/ approaches that the author has suggested his book.

The author has a great sense of humour which he deploys while expalaining abstract concepts. This puts the reader at ease. His grip on the UML methodology comes out clearly in this book. I have read the other books from the same author and feel that he has an exemplenary style.

In all, I'd strongly recommend this book to all interested in software quality as a topic.

Rating:
Summary: A realistic approach to quality assurance
Review: Being so long in the software development field, I have always been fascinated by the quality process. Up until I read Dr. Unhelkar's book, I always considered the quality process in software projects, to be "a knack". After reading this book, I am convinced that there is definitely a scientific method to the quality assurance, which every project manager or developer should adopt. The concepts covered in the book touch the human aspects of the quality process. The book provides a good mix of theory and practice. A must read for all software professionals.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Approach
Review: Bhuvan Unhelkar is clearly an astute thinker and an established authority on the subject, a fact which is very well transposed in the content and applicability of this book.
What is most important though is the continuous relevence this book has to real life projects, a point often missed out by most "theory" books.
A must for teams looking to bring method to their development madness.

Rating:
Summary: Methodology with feet on the ground
Review: In any methodology or method, too much or too little method (generally the former) can be self-defeating. Bhuvan's "PQA for UML Projects" provides a unique perspective on the human dimension to an otherwise dull world of "process", "quality" and for that matter UML.

True practioner's insight is proven by the fact that the book recognises that a methodology imposed without human or social consideration is destined for failure. To that end, the book leverages "role play", "scene setting" and "enacting the quality process" - with transactional analysis as foundation. These form the fibre of the whole book.

There is full coverage of concepts and scenarios - with rigourous depth and breadth -- viz. role of models (not the kind in glossy magazines ;-)) in defining quality, full SDLC, increased focus on architecture in line with the state of industry, estimation and metrics, outsourcing, application to CMM maturity assessments; and finally testing gets a substantial coverage with one 3rd of the book devoted to it.

My favourite will have to be Part II - "Organising and Enacting the Process of Quality", with its discussion of project sociology, a full ten pages on "transactional analysis in software projects". It shows Bhuvan's own long innings in the software development industry and how he has enjoyed the turmoil. Author's passion and rigour in defining and implementing a process is evident. Overall, the book communicates an attitude to organising and management of software projects - balancing rigour of process, quality and UML modelling with the human, organisational and social dimension.

I found the deliverable templates and project definitions quite useful - though these will need to be customised according the focus of specific project viz. outsourcing, distributed systems - i.e. areas of complexity will need to be expanded.

Overall the book provides a big "leg up" in getting large projects using UML off the ground and then internalising the developed process towards a greater CMM maturity level.

As a suggestion, I would have liked a graphical or tabular representation of the structure of the material in the book - so that I can navigate easily. It is described in text, but it becomes a bit hard to hold it in mind, given the range of dimensions covered.

Rating:
Summary: Very, very disappointing
Review: This book is nothing more than a poorly written re-hash of the work of others.

The book ignores many key influences on quality. For example, there is very little discussion of requirements management, or the development and management of real test suites. There is no real discussion of testing tools. There is also virtually no discussion of real problems that affect testing (e.g. scope changes or loss of information). Much of the information in the book is theoretical, and borrowed from elsewhere. Apart from that, the processes are heavyweight, and not suited to the efficient execution of real software projects.

It's a very dull book, and the author's self congratulatory tone soon becomes irritating. Needless to say, I was very disappointed.

Do yourself a favour and buy a real book on QA!

Rating:
Summary: A very good book on QA for UML Based projects
Review: This is a substantially well researched book that was helpful to me as I looked for non-prescriptive material on quality. There are several books on quality and testing directly dealing with how to do it, without going through the theory and background of why. I found this book extremely helpful in setting the scene for quality. A must read for team leaders and project managers dealing with quality.