This is a very small book with a giant goal. The author promises “a collection of the best new contributions to software project management--both programs and techniques--while at the same time providing an up-to-date general view of software program development” (preface). The author feels that the best of these new techniques is the so-called skeleton system. “The basic idea is simple. In order to put a complex system together, a basic framework should be developed first (the ‘skeleton’) and the system proven viable with very few basic components before the total system is coded (‘fleshed out’).”

There are chapters on management, documentation, planning and monitoring, project definition, productivity, design, production, and installation. The book also contains a short glossary, an index, and three appendices. These list trademarks of products and services mentioned in the text; project management packages, which are differentiated by price range; and (briefly) software development or support systems.

It is hard to pinpoint a reader who could find this book useful. Since it is very simplistic in its approach and does not seem to be breaking any new ground--the skeleton approach so strongly influencing the author is almost antediluvian in the systems analysis context--the most likely reader is someone who wants a very quick review of what is new in the field, described in a practical, retrospective way. But even here there are problems. The author relies so much on material that has already been expertly presented by others in the field, like James Martin and Capers Jones, that the more direct approach of going to the originals seems better [1,2]. For example, in chapter 4, on software project definition, nearly all the material is directly taken from Jones’s work (and so attributed).

On balance, the book’s advantage is that a person can browse through it quickly for a sense of the direction of software project management techniques, but the lightness of the coverage and the preoccupation with the skeleton approach suggest that the new techniques promised in the title are not really being delivered.