Beautiful Teams

What's it like to work on a great software development team facing an impossible problem? How do you build an effective team? Can a group of people who don't get along still build good software? How does a team leader keep everyone on track when the stakes are high and the schedule is tight?

Beautiful Teams takes you behind the scenes with some of the most interesting teams in software engineering history. You'll learn from veteran team leaders' successes and failures, told through a series of engaging personal stories -- and interviews -- by leading programmers, architects, project managers, and thought leaders.

This book includes contributions from:

• Tim O'Reilly
• Scott Berkun
• Mark Healey
• Bill DiPierre
• Andy Lester
• Keoki Andrus
• Tom Tarka
• Auke Jilderda
• Grady Booch
• Jennifer Greene
• Mike Cohn
• Cory Doctorow
• Neil Siegel
• Trevor Field
• James Grenning
• Steve McConnell
• Barry Boehm and Maria H. Penedo
• Peter Gluck
• Karl E. Wiegers
• Alex Martelli
• Karl Fogel
• Michael Collins
• Karl Rehmer
• Andrew Stellman
• Ned Robinson
• Scott Ambler
• Johanna Rothman
• Mark Denovich and Eric Renkey
• Patricia Ensworth
• Andy Oram
• Tony Visconti

Beautiful Teams is edited by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene, veteran software engineers and project managers who have been writing bestselling books for O'Reilly since 2005, including Applied Software Project Management, Head First PMP, and Head First C#.

Andrew Stellman, despite being raised a New Yorker, has lived in Pittsburgh twice. The first time was when he graduated from Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, and then again when he and Jenny were starting their consulting business and writing their first project management book for O'Reilly. When he moved back to his hometown, his first job after college was as a programmer at EMI-Capitol Records--which actually made sense, since he went to LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts to study cello and jazz bass guitar. He and Jenny first worked together at that same financial software company, where he was managing a team of programmers. He's since managed various teams of software engineers, requirements analysts, and led process improvement efforts. Andrew keeps himself busy eating an enormous amount of string cheese and Middle Eastern desserts, playing music (but video games even more), studying taiji and aikido, having a girlfriend named Lisa, and owing a pomeranian. For more information about Andrew, Jennifer Greene, and their books, visit http: //www.stellman-greene.com.

Jennifer Greene studied philosophy in college but, like everyone else in the field, couldn't find a job doing it. Luckily, she's a great software tester, so she started out doing it at an online service, and that's the first time she got a good sense of what project management was. She moved to New York in 1998 to test software at a financial software company. She managed a team of testers at a really cool startup that did artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Since then, she's managed large teams of programmers, testers, designers, architects, and other engineers on lots of projects, and she's done a whole bunch of procurement management. She loves traveling, watching Bollywood movies, drinking carloads of carbonated beverages, and owing a whippet. For more information about Jennifer, Andrew Stellman, and their books, visit http: //www.stellman-greene.com.