This book is a light and humorous collection of advice and guidance for the manager of data processing application development projects, liberally sprinkled with anecdotes from the author’s experience. The book is structured to parallel the author’s more traditional text, Managing a programming project [1], in which the application development cycle is divided into definition, design, programming, system test, acceptance test, and installation phases. There is one chapter in the book for each of these six phases, plus an introductory chapter on the role of the manager, and a summary. In each of the six central chapters, the author discusses the problems of dealing with employees in the corresponding project phase. These include desirable and undesirable characteristics of personnel and common pitfalls such as the analyst who tries to design the system before the requirements are defined and the designer who wants to write code before the data structures are established. General considerations on personnel matters, such as breaking in new employees, training, salary, promotions, and discipline, are distributed randomly throughout the book. Two dozen illustrations, mostly Daumier prints, provide comic relief.

The book provides concise, sound advice for the newly anointed manager and can provide a pleasant, quick refresher for the veteran. However, the guidance provided is mostly oriented to the avoidance of grotesque blunders. For the experienced manager, discussion of more subtle management problems and solutions would be of greater value.