Book Description
Ship It! is a collection of tips that show the tools and techniques a successful project team has to use, and how to use them well. You'll get quick, easy-to-follow advice on modern practices: which to use, and when they should be applied. This book avoids current fashion trends and marketing hype; instead, readers find page after page of solid advice, all tried and tested in the real world.
Aimed at beginning to intermediate programmers,
Ship It! will show you:
- Which tools help, and which don't
- How to keep a project moving
- Approaches to scheduling that work
- How to build developers as well as product
- What's normal on a project, and what's not
- How to manage managers, end-users and sponsors
- Danger signs and how to fix them
Few of the ideas presented here are controversial or extreme; most experienced programmers will agree that this stuff works. Yet 50 to 70 percent of all project teams in the U.S. aren't able to use even these simple, well-accepted practices effectively. This book will help you get started.
Ship It! begins by introducing the common technical infrastructure that every project needs to get the job done. Readers can choose from a variety of recommended technologies according to their skills and budgets. The next sections outline the necessary steps to get software out the door reliably, using well-accepted, easy-to-adopt, best-of-breed practices that really work.
Finally, and most importantly, Ship It! presents common problems that teams face, then offers real-world advice on how to solve them.
Customer Reviews:
Highy Recommended.......2007-07-30
If you are familiar with the "The Pragmatic Programmer"(written by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas) then you will probably recognise the Pragmatic Bookshelf series of books, set up by Hunt and Thomas, in which Ship It! is included. This series of books sets itself apart by emphasising the practical aspects of delivering software, and also doing it well.
The book is split into the following chapters:
* Introduction
* Tools and Infrastructure
* Pragmatic Project Techniques
* Tracer Bullet Development
* Common Problems and How to Fix Them
From the very first chapter, the authors make it clear `Ship It!' is not another methodology, "There is no single, right way to develop software. There are a lot of wrong ways...". Instead, they have gathered together the `best' bits' of various styles and methodologies they have been directly involved with, and combined them into a practical approach with the focus on delivering a project. The authors do not expect you to necessarily implement everything they suggest all at once. Adopt one or two at time and determine if they work in your environment. This practical stance is reinforced throughout the book. A selection of the topics examined can be broadly listed as follows:
* Use source control (for anything you want to keep)
* Automate your build (one click)
* Use continuous integration
* Track issues and features
* Write tests and automate them
* Use mocking
* Build end-to-end stubbed systems (Tracer Bullet Development)
* Build teams and foster communication
It is easy to read and feels fresh. As another reviewer pointed out, "It's a rare book that speaks convincingly to both developers and managers, but this one does a good job". There is a definite emphasis on the positive; it is about how to make projects succeed rather than a post-mortem of why they fail. The chapter "Common Problems and How to Fix Them" is a gem, with practical advice for developers, managers and customers.
In Appendix E: Issue Tracking Systems, I was surprised to see that Gemini from CounterSoft (http://www.countersoft.com/) was not mentioned. I have implemented it at several sites with minimal effort and it has been used by developers and users with great success.
In Tracer bullet development, I agree with the approach to the end-to-end working `stubbed` systems, but I would also add that methods should also be written in such a way that the release version will throw an exception in any method that has not been implemented (rather than just returning a dummy value). Otherwise, years from now, you might find yourself mentioned on the DailyWTF! In some ways, it would have been nice to have had a worked code example for this section, but I realise the authors did not want to limit themselves to one particular language and restrict the reach of this book; I think they made the right decision.
If you are an experienced developer, then you probably will not find anything revolutionary or truly new amongst its 200 pages, but you might find something that your current routine is missing. Is this book worth reading? Absolutely. I would not hesitate for a moment in saying go out and buy it. Highly recommended.
I rather choose joel.......2007-07-02
I liked the book and It is not expensive at all. It is really useful as a check list on things you need to deploy in your software development process. It will not be easy but for sure it payoff.
However, If you want a more tangential and funny approach to the same issues It could be interesting to read "Joel on Software".
Practical but not Revolutionary.......2006-11-10
This is a good book to own if it's your first "software project" guide. It covers all the right topics and gives you plenty of detail to implement the ideas. However, I didn't find much NEW info.
Had it been one of my first project management books I would have rated it higher.
Getting software out the door the common sense way.......2006-10-13
Following the line of Hunt and Thomas's The Pragmatic Programmer, this book is really a collection of tips and best practices for what the authors have found works well on real projects. It is not a detailed, scientific or process laden tome, rather just some common-sense ideas - some of which you probably do any way. I recommend it here because I believe reading it will help you put some perspective and substance around your build and release process.
Buy it. Live it. Ship It........2006-06-26
We've seen enough books about "why projects fail." Finally, here is a book about "why projects succeed" and how you can help yours. The book is split into several areas. The two most important, in my mind, are the list of critical practices for developers to follow and the explaination of "Tracer Bullet" development. As the author notes right up front, this isn't a book about development project management. This is a book from a developer for developers. Independent of the project management style you use this book is going to help you complete your project and "Ship It!"
The list of critical practices are well defined and each one is simple enough to implement. It makes you feel like maybe you could do it. Most important, it explains why you should do it - in compelling terms so that even if you are skeptical of "continuous integration" or "pair programming" or "unit tests", well, you won't be after you read this book.
"Tracer Bullet" development isn't another methodology, but a way of incrementally developing a project so that the status is more clear to the customer and so that you can quickly turn abstract ideas that the team has into something more concrete to react to. In doing so, you maintain an integrated view of the product you are working on and help people understand their ideas more quickly. It is priceless for any non-trival software. Most of us probably have learned to do this anyway, but now there is a name for it and a guide to understand why we do what we learned through trial and error.
Product Description
Now you dont have to know accounting to understand and reap the benefits of earned value project management. In one convenient resource, "A Practical Guide to Earned Value Project Management" spells out everything you need to know to use this highly effective project management tool. First youll get an overview of the earned value management system (EVMS) and how its used. Then youll take a look at the 32 criteria and learn how each corresponds with successful project management. Next, youll move through the lifecycle of a sample project to see how the components of the earned value system are applied. Along the way, youll learn how to: Interpret and use the earned value management system to manage your projects; Compute variances that are more meaningful to project owners and project teams; Design reports and graphs with more valuable information; Address unfavorable earned value metrics; Compare projects to better understand which ones are doing well, which are in trouble, and which need to go. With "A Practical Guide to Earned Value Project Management," youll gain an understanding of the EVMS, develop skills for using the system yourself, and learn techniques for meeting EVMS criteria everything you need to complete projects successfully! Table of Contents: Introduction: Background and Motivation
Project Management · Preparing to Use EVMS: Earned Value Project Management: An Overview
Implementing EVMS · Its All in the Plan: The Project Plan (Criterion 1)
The Organization (Criteria 2-5)
The Schedule (Criteria 6-8)
The Budget (Criteria 9-15) · Project Status: Tracking Performance (Criteria 16-21)
Reporting Variances (Criteria 22-27) · Handling a Projects Changes and Termination: Time for a Change (Criteria 28-32) · Are We There Yet? · Epilogue
Customer Reviews:
Saying it's a "practical guide" sums it up well.......2005-12-29
There are a number of reasons that you might choose to use an Earned Value Management System-it's required for government contracts, it can be used to show compliance to the Sarbanes-Oxley requirement for "disclosure controls and procedures", or to advance to the next level in your organization's Capability Maturity Model-and if you need a helpful and practical guide then this is the book for you. The authors do an excellent job of getting to the intent behind Earned Value by focusing on the 32 criteria for EVMS spelled out in the official standard: ANSI/EIA-748-1998. Any approach that follows these 32 criteria is, by definition, an EVMS. This is a key point and highlights that not all companies require the same system, methods, or tools to create a valid and valuable EVMS.
This focus on the intent behind Earned Value is a constant theme throughout the book and is one of the things that sets it apart from other books on the subject. They also cover a number of common pitfalls to EVMS implementations, such as trying to create a "one size fits all" system that goes into way too much detail but provides minimal (if any) additional value. It also strongly cautions against using EVMS as the only means of managing projects by pointing out several of the major shortcomings in Earned Value variance reports and the use of SPI and CPI. Through descriptions and examples the book emphasizes how EV can be extremely useful when used in conjunction with other project management best practices. For example, from page 57,
"Although EV can provide some objective measures of performance, the dollar-aggregated project measurements can point neither to specific areas of good or poor performance nor to their cause."
The book also cautions against using EV metrics to drive short term actions, pointing out that the metrics do not differentiate between Common and Special causes of variation and can lead to what Dr. Deming called "tampering" on the part of management.
An example of the book's breadth and insight is in the coverage of EVMS Criteria 19-"Record all indirect costs which will be allocated to the contract." Four different allocation methods are described: Direct, Step-Down, Reciprocal, and Activity-Based Costing. There are descriptions and examples of each as well as special cautions against using any allocation method that confounds fixed and variable costs. This section is not intended to make the project manager an expert in accounting, but it will give the project manager an insight into what questions to ask those providing them financial support. This type of multi-functional linkage, with references, is found throughout the book. Likewise, there are a number of example calculations throughout the book covering the difference aspects of EV.
The book discusses how EVMS relates to waterfall and spiral development models and discusses the April 2005 "Earned Value Management Implementation Guide" from the Defense Acquisition University. Again, it reinforces that there is no "universal" EVMS system, nor does EVMS mandate or require any particular management system. This leads to what I consider to be one of the book's most important contributions-along with conventional Critical Path approaches it specifically discusses the use of EV in conjunction with Critical Chain Project Management, pointing out that EVMS and CCPM are completely compatible. Those looking for a precise guide on how to operate Earned Value and Critical Chain together will not find it here; that sort of detail would go against the book's focus on the intent behind the details. Instead, as the entire book reinforces, understanding the intent of EVM will help you create a compatible approach that best matches your situation. And that, ultimately, is of far greater value than following someone else's detailed implementation recipe.
Finally, an understandable learning tool for Proj. Control........2005-12-22
I started my management career using what we called CS2, the forerunner to the Earned Value Management System. This book is a very valuable career tool in graduating to EV. It clearly explains the metrics of EVSM and describes all the basic requirements. I found it to be a most comprehensive and logically organized treatise on the enitre project management field. I highly recommend it to all current and aspiring project managers.
Harry Morgan
Book Description
Harvard ManageMentor guides are practical, portable advice for managers, especially designed to support just-in-time and other corporate training needs. Project management is the ultimate juggling act, involving the use of sometimes scarce resources like people, time, and money to meet a goal or solve a problem. This essential guide shows a new project manager or one who desires a refresher how to scope out a project, develop schedules, set deadlines, manage and monitor progress, and overcome some typical project snags, such as mission creep and schedule slippage. It also covers the four phases of planning, buildup, implementation, and phaseout and the tasks associated with each. Written in an engaging style designed for easy scanning by the business reader, the guide is packed with advice, tips, worksheets, and more to help any manager become a more efficient and effective multitasker.
Customer Reviews:
Basics for a Project-Driven World.......2002-10-11
It's short, clearly written, to the point, and filled with basic templates. A book designed for the professional who wants to understand and be able to use standard project methodologies from information technology (IT) projects to construction projects, to planning a trip, or preparing a research grant. We are using it in all of our business areas.
I am an experienced project manager, and recommend this book to anyone who wants to approach life in an organized, measurable manner. Project Management is not just for IT.
Book Description
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) goes beyond the typical project management approach to offer a set of proven business practices that can help executives, program managers, and project managers bring projects into alignment with the strategies, resources, and executive oversight of the overall enterprise. Step by step, this book shows how to take a project from the inception of a vision to the realization of benefits to the organization. Project Portfolio Management draws on project management expert Harvey A. Levine’s years of research and distills the knowledge and best practices from dozens of leaders in the field to show how to select and implement the projects that will garner the best results. Throughout this important resource, Levine tackles the many challenges associated with PPM, including
- Ranking value and benefits
- Determining the size of the portfolio pipeline
- Assessing the impact of uncertainty on projects and portfolios
- Understanding the benefit and risk relationship
- Establishing a portfolio governance capability
- Managing the portfolio to maximize benefits
- Implementing PPM
Download Description
Project Portfolio Management (PPM) goes beyond the typical project management approach to offer a set of proven business practices that can help executives, program managers, and project managers bring projects into alignment with the strategies, resources, and executive oversight of the overall enterprise. Step by step, this book shows how to take a project from the inception of a vision to the realization of benefits to the organization. Project Portfolio Management draws on project management expert Harvey A. Levine's years of research and distills the knowledge and best practices from dozens of leaders in the field to show how to select and implement the projects that will garner the best results. Throughout this important resource, Levine tackles the many challenges associated with PPM, including Ranking value and benefits Determining the size of the portfolio pipeline Assessing the impact of uncertainty on projects and portfolios Understanding the benefit and risk relationship Establishing a portfolio governance capability Managing the portfolio to maximize benefits Implementing PPM
Customer Reviews:
A very easy read to introduce and guide people into the world of PPM.......2007-03-16
After having evaluated many recent books on the subject of Project Portfolio Management, I found the practical guidance and descriptive clarity as provided by Harvey A. Levine exceptional. Working for Serena Software, I was looking for a single book that could educate and guide a variety of people into PPM, ranging from new Mariner account managers, engineers as well as Mariner customers. Not only does this book provide an easy way to understand the typical Project Portfolio Management process, it is being done using such simple terms, avoiding buzzwords and unnecessary jargon, making it very easy and fast to read, even for a non native English speaking audience. The latter is important if you are operating worldwide. The book does contain some level of repetition, especially in Part Two, but as these are contributing sections and case studies, written by different authors who provide a different angle or viewpoint to the same concepts, I found those especially useful for practitioners (our engineers and customers). The downside of having multiple authors is however that Levine's simple and clear writing style is not always maintained. The advantage of this approach is that within the same book, readers will benefit from learning some related topics such as ways to measure (e.g. earned value, AHP, NPV), Enterprise Project Management, IT Governance, and much more.
As a result, the company has bought over 50 copies to date and I have been recommending this book to our new employees, partners, and customers worldwide who want to build up their knowledge and implementation skills in Project Portfolio Management.
Eddy Pauwels
Serena Software
Antwerp, Belgium
Book Description
Achieving decisive, accountable, value-adding, managerial leadership is critical to effective organizations. Jaques and Clement approach this leadership question in an entirely new way.By clarifying the meaning of leadership within the organizational structure. they show that all managers must have leadership accountability, and that there con be no such thing as an effective manager who does not effectively discharge that accountability.It is in this analysis of what makes for effective managerial leadership that Executive Leadership is at its most radical. Jaques and Clement reject the notion that particular groups of personality qualities and traits characterize effective leaders and instead focus on the requisite organizational structure for managerial leadership to occur.Executive Leadership is a refreshingly practical approach to the development of decisive managerial leaders at all levels of the organization. It is essential reading for all concerned with organization development, leadership and human resource management.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book.......2004-11-01
Elliott Jaques devised a system for analyzing executive ability based upon an individual's time horizon--the maximum period of time in the future toward which his/her work activities were aimed in their performance. He reached this conclusion during extensive, longitudinal, empirical studies in England. His series of books reflect his elaboration and extension of this finding. He worked, for a time, with Dr. Owen Jacobs of the U.S. Army (and then the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, ICAF). Jaques prior, groundbreaking book, "Requisite Organization" is more pictorial than this volume. The present work is oriented more towards practicing executives. After reading it, I bought a copy and loaned it to my boss! I wish more bosses would read it--and carefully at that. The charts provided are engaging and thought-provoking. A less extensive volume, "Human Capability" follows in sequence. Jaques wrote it with is wife and publisher: Kathryn Cason. It is a fine sequel, adding some additional perspectives and completing the charts that Jaques developed over time. These books are most strongly recommended for serious students and practitioners of management. They go far in attempting to move management into management science.
Book Description
This book outlines the critical project-management tools which include learning the four phases of a project's life cycle, planning for quality, time, and cost to make the best use of your resources, controlling your work-in-progress with interim reviews, and bringing your project to a successful conclusion. The principles of project management are applicable at all levels of an organization. Whether you are managing a construction project or software development, an office relocation or a class reunion, your project will run more smoothly using the tools outlined here. This book shows you how to use the basics of project planning and tracking and how to combine them with the negotiating skills needed to succeed at project management.
Customer Reviews:
All you ever wanted to know..........2007-01-06
This is a handy little overview of project management. I've given it to many, many folks since I first discovered it over 15 years ago. It tells you the basics in a coloring-book style that is easy to understand and remember. It won't get you through your Project Management Professional exam, but if what you need is the equivalent of Cliff Notes for project management, this is the book you need.
Average customer rating:
- Beginning to intermediate level
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The Practical Guide to Project Management Documentation
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Project Management ToolBox: Tools and Techniques for the Practicing Project Manager
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A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Third Edition (PMBOK Guides)
ASIN: 047169309X |
Book Description
Project Management
The one-stop resource for project management documentation and templates for all projects
The success of any project is crucially dependent on the documents produced for it. The Practical Guide to Project Management Documentation provides a complete and reliable source of explanations and examples for every possible project-related document-from the proposal, business case, and project plan, to the status report and final post-project review.
The Practical Guide to Project Management Documentation is packed with material that slashes the time and effort expended on producing new documents from scratch. Following the processes in the Project Management Institute's Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK(r)), this one-stop, full-service book also offers tips and techniques for working with documents in each project process. Documentation for several project/client scenarios is addressed, including internal and externally contracted projects. A single project-the construction of a water theme park-is used as the case study for all the document examples.
An included CD-ROM provides all the documents from the book as Microsoft Word(r) files. Readers can use these as a framework to develop their own project documents.
The Practical Guide to Project Management Documentation is an unmatched reference for the numerous documents essential to project managers in all industries.
Customer Reviews:
Beginning to intermediate level.......2005-03-02
Ever wonder about the outputs that have the term plan in the PMBOK are ? i.e. Project Plan, Communication management plan or Risk management plan. This book gives template which are filled by the books example project a "water amusement park" with guidance on how to write them. And other templates such Request For Proposal and Status meetings. It will definitely shed light on what these articles are to the newcomer to the PMBOK or project management. However I was not overly impressed with the contents, perhaps the authors were trying to keep it generic and not too complicated for the reader. The CD ROM is an exact duplicate of the book in MS-Word format. So don't expect any more on the CD, a disappointment to me. The book seemed to be missing on templates for budgets, time keeping, work completed and more. Not for a seasoned project manager.
Customer Reviews:
Describes an ideal manager for software development.......2003-04-17
Constructing the appropriate team and environment for the creation of a software project is difficult because writing code is difficult. Many still object to the term "software engineering" because they feel, with a great deal of justification, that it is not yet stable enough to be a field of engineering. To them, a field of engineering has a set of formulas that define the rules for the use of raw materials. Engineers then construct their edifices by placing the proper numbers in the formulas and then building the structure using the results. Despite decades of effort to make it otherwise, software creation is still more art than engineering.
Paulish understands this and uses rules of thumb rather than formulas to describe the software construction process. It all starts with the software development plan (SDP), a description of the organizational structure of the process and the roles and responsibilities of all the members of the team. Short and primarily in outline form, it sets out the general format of how the goals are to be achieved. Experienced managers understand that this starts as a straw man, to be slowly solidified as all inputs are accepted and incorporated.
The hardest part of all software projects is the management of expectations, and it is the place where a manager can make the most difference. One of the quickest ways to poison a well functioning team is to allow unreasonable or inaccurate expectations to be inserted into the plan, either explicitly or by rumor. Paulish devotes chapter four to this, although it is too short. There is much more to this area than he lists in chapter four. Fortunately, this idea recurs in many other sections, so it does receive adequate coverage.
In the modern world, the management of a distributed workforce is fairly typical, and as anyone who has done it will tell you, in many cases the time differential is one of the smaller problems. Language difficulties also occur, but the real difficulties are the social and cultural differences. When you consider how difficult it is to communicate when you share the same cultural background, language, office space and are in proximity for eight hours a day, you realize how difficult it is to make yourself understood when you are separated by half a planet. Chapter 6 is devoted to this issue, but once again, not enough ink and paper are used to cover this critical area. The best piece of advice in the entire book is to undergo some form of focused multicultural training before embarking on an outsourcing project.
While there is a chapter devoted to metrics used to chart progress, it is largely devoid of formulas and expressions. Many of the metrics used are politely referred to as "controversial", which is often a euphemism for "widely disbelieved." Paulish firmly believes in leaving aside the firm tracking mechanisms and relying on hands-on efforts such as following the daily bug tracks and even working as an informal tester. This will give a manager a feel for the software that no other technique ever could.
One of the last chapters is also one of the best, where the simple question "What is a good job?" is asked and answered. This is critical, for software is one area where you can win the battle but lose the war. Many software projects deliver a functioning product and a team of dysfunctional members. The best managers reach the release date with a team that is tired and proud rather than just tired. Paulish rightly considers the staff turnover metric to be one of the key indicators of whether the project can be deemed a success.
Paulish describes a quality, maybe even an ideal manager, which is someone who absorbs a lot of the normal shocks of software development rather than amplifying them before passing them on. His ideas will work to make software development projects work over the long term and if you are in that group, then some of your attention should be focused on what he is saying.
Lynchpin of SEI's architecture and product-line material.......2002-08-15
The ideal audience of this book includes anyone who works within, or who follows, SEI's (Software Engineering Institute's) extensive body of work on architecture and/or product line engineering, or who needs to develop a project management framework for software development. While the approach in this book is more suited for product-oriented development, it can also be used for major internal projects.
As the title implies, the focus on the project management framework is the architecture, and the key elements of the approach are planning, organizing, implementing and measuring. The latter element lends itself to continuous refinement and fits nicely into CMM level 4 and 5 organization, which is not surprising since the CMM is embedded in practically every guide produced by SEI.
What makes this book special, though, is the clearly defined approach that is systematically presented using case studies and frequent diagrams to orient you as you go through the book. More importantly, the author communicates a vision and shows how to put it into practice.
I like the approach because it lends itself to realistic project planning and estimation. By taking an architecture-centric approach it's easy to develop a complete work breakdown structure early in the planning phase, which provides a foundation for detailed estimating. I also like the way the approach separates, then integrates, team organization, requirements and strategy, risk management and release planning.
This is not another project management methodology, but instead, shows how to use architecture as the focal point of the project and use whatever specific PM methodology suits your organization to effectively define project deliverables and the final product. It's complete, realistic and will work in practice.
PM & Global Development.......2002-05-17
Certainly the importance of mastering project management, in particular for products that contain signficant amounts of software, is crucial for business success, both at Siemens and elsewhere. This book is based on extensive practical experience and is a broad and well-written book on this topic. The special focus on software architecture as a major success factor for projects provides a useful perspective -- not only for project managers but also software architects as well as others in the software development team. This book also provides a unique "global development" perspective on the topic of project management.
Sage insight into software architecture, project management.......2002-03-18
I find this book enormously helpful with its wise insight into all aspects of software project management, in all the technical, managerial, political, marketing, and personnel areas that influence the success of software projects. Its emphasis on good architecture and design as the basis for good project management is essential for current and future project managers to understand and appreciate. The book is well-written, well researched, and very readable, particularly valuable in the insights from a manager who has worked in multiple divisions, multiple product domains, and in multiple countries with international engineering teams.
Effective Software Project Management.......2002-03-09
If you are a software project manager looking for ways to improve software development performance, then read this book. Architecture-Centric Software Project Management by Daniel Paulish is based on several years of real-life, industry experience and is full of practical advise for you to use and succeed with your software project. Software managers who have always wondered why their software teams don't/can't live up to their expectations should also find this book insightful.
Written in a simple straight-forward style, this books distills the practical wisdom gained for executing successful software projects. The essence of the book is Chapter 2 that captures the motivation for architecture-centered software project planning and outlines the core principles behind it. Organized in seven parts and divided in seventeen chapters, the book integrates in its presentation almost all the aspects of software project management while maintaining the architecture-centered view for executing software projects. Among its various chapters and topics the ones that particularly appealed to me are: Global Analysis (Chapter 3), Global Development (Chapter 6), Trade-offs and Project Decisions (Chapter 9) and Incremental Development (Chapter 10). In its part six, Paulish also presents two cases to illustrate the techniques described in the book.
With software projects becoming increasingly complex and globally distributed software development becoming a business necessity, Paulish's book should be of help to both the
seasoned and novice software project managers alike. After all, the most powerful ideas and techniques are those that are simple in nature but require a passionate and well thought-out implmentation, and this is what Paulish's book is about. Grab a copy of "Architecture-Centric Software Project Management" right away if you are looking for simple ways to be a effective software project manager and improve your project's
performance.
Book Description
This updated classic is unrivaled in its complete, single-volume coverage of financing real estate development
This thoroughly revised Third Edition of Construction Funding provides professional and student readers alike with the critical tools needed for developing any successful real estate venture. Using a case example of a 260-unit apartment development, the authors walk the reader through each project phase, offering invaluable guidance on raising capital, selecting markets, rating sites, securing insurance, creating joint ventures, understanding loan options, and mastering cash flow management.
Beginning with an overview of today's real estate industry, Construction Funding acquaints readers with various types of business organizations in real estate, including the advantages and disadvantages of each. An entire chapter in this first section is devoted to the most critical tool of them all: negotiation. The second section of the book provides a step-by-step outline of the typical development process from start to finish. Included in this section are guidelines for:
- Creating a pro forma that will make projects profitable, not a loss
- Understanding the appraisal-the key to financing real estate
- Navigating a loan application
- Correctly completing all required documents to close a construction loan
- Writing a commitment letter that can seal a $15 million deal
The final, third section addresses the mathematical and technical tools of construction, including chapters on forecasting cash flow needs, calculating the time value of money, and funding and feasibility problems. Also provided are appendices containing loan forms, interest rate tables, and valuable information on federal construction programs.
Written by a team of authors with broad experience in the construction and real estate industries, Construction Funding is the book to guide undergraduate and graduate students in construction programs, as well as an invaluable reference for professional developers, planners, and contractors.
Customer Reviews:
the right book, at the right time, in the right place... dubai.......2006-08-17
the right book, at the right time, in the right place... dubai
What a Phenomenal Job!.......2005-04-14
I read construction funding, prematurely perhaps, as one of my first ever real estate books - and I loved it! The book takes the reader through several once-real-life scenarios and explains the construction process step by step. I think that both ambitious beginners and more seasoned loan officers and developers would benefit from reading this book.
MBA student.......2002-03-05
Very interesting book; very easy to read.
As a small real estate investor I found it very helpful in understanding many of the ins and outs of real estate and financing, especially on the scale i would like to grow to.
A first class book on Real Estate Development.......2002-02-05
The third edition of Construction Funding by Nathan S. Collier et al is a remarkable demonstration of insight and expertise. Collier and colleagues provide an exceptionally lucid description and analysis of the process of real estate development that is accessible to non-experts while being authoritative at the same time. In addition to being an excellent text for students and others interested in careers in real estate development, this book serves as essential background for all those whose responsibilities include any part of the development process.
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