Enterprise Software Delivery: Bringing Agility and Efficiency to the Global Software Supply Chain Book Review

If you want a current look into the state of enterprise software deliver at a global level, then this is the book for you. The book kicks off with a nice overview of the complexities involved with software delivery at an enterprise level. It then details what a typical software delivery project looks like and highlights target areas of potential improvement. I have listed all the chapters below to give you a high level view of everything that is covered. Chapter 1. Why Is Enterprise Software Delivery So Difficult? Chapter 2. Anatomy of an Enterprise Software Delivery Project Chapter 3. The Software Supply Chain and Software Factories Chapter 4. Collaborative Software Delivery Chapter 5. Agile Software Delivery Chapter 6. Software Quality Chapter 7. Governance, Measurement, and Metrics Chapter 8. A Case Study in Agile-at-Scale Adoption at Danske Bank Chapter 9. A Case Study in Global Software Product Delivery at IBM Rational Chapter 10. Lessons for Success in Global Enterprise Software Delivery Chapter 11. The Future of Global Enterprise Software Delivery Appendix A. Enterprise Software Delivery Revisited In the Software Supply Chain and Software Factories chapter the author discusses one of the key ingredients to success, which is successful implementation of Service Oriented Architect (SOA) and Product Line Engineering. When I find an enterprise is missing a searchable index of shared assets, which SOA and PLE provide, they are always lost and struggling to stay afloat. SOA and PLE are only possible in highly disciplined organizations. If you are thinking highly disciplined means you are not agile, you are way off base. Agile is very disciplined and very process intensive. I have been part of some very successful global collaboration software delivery efforts, and I have been part of some that simply flopped. There were 2 primary reasons they flopped. One was the remote teams hired to do the development simply did not have the skillsets they needed, and they were not teachable. The second reason was bad communication, bad management, and unclear boundaries for the teams when it came to their responsibilities and deliverables. Chapter 4 addresses these issues head on. It does a great job of highlighting the import collaboration issues and addresses by introducing collaborative application life-cycle management. The author then has a nice chapter on agile practices. He does a great job of introducing agile practices and covers how they can be adopted in complex enterprise at scale. He provides really practical and levelheaded advice in this chapter. Something I wish more authors would do when it comes to agile practices and the reality of their effectiveness. I love the chapter on software quality. The author does a great job of first providing the reason why there are so many software quality problems in large, multiplatform, multi-language applications and then he introduces the testing software factory as a solution to help mitigate some of the quality issues. The chapter on governance, measurement, and metrics is all about proper communication of responsibilities, authority, policies, and standards and how to measure your success with these items. The book continues with two case studies that highlight the topics covered in the book, a chapter that summarizes the key points made in the book, and a look into the future of global enterprise software delivery. The thing I like most about this book is that it is down to earth and it contains no fluff. There is no soapboxing or self-proclaimed theories on how to fix the world of IT. The book is based on experience not wishful thinking. Over all I highly recommend this book to any Enterprise Architect or CIO that wants a down to earth look at the industry's state of enterprise level software delivery and excellent advice on how to improve enterprise level software delivery in their own world.

Enterprise Software Delivery: Bringing Agility and Efficiency to the Global Software Supply Chain