People

In the engineering vice presidents of 3 major technology organizations were asked the very important contributor to a successful software project.  The answers of that question are in the following way.

VP 1:  I guess if you had to pick 1 thing out that is most important in our environment I would say it is not the tools that we use, and it is the people.

VP 2: The most important thing you do for a project is selecting the staff.  The success of the software development organization is very, very much associated with the ability to recruit good people. The most important ingredient that was successful on this project was having smart people.  Very little else matters in my opinion.  

VP3: The only rule I have in management is to ensure I have good people real good people and that I Grow good people and which provide an environment in which good people can produce.

Indeed this is a compelling testimonial on the importance of people in the software engineering procedure. And still, all of us from senior engineering vice presidents to the lowliest practitioner are often take people for granted.  In this section we examine the players who participate in the software procedure and the manner in which they are organized to perform effective engineering. Managers argue that people are primary but their actions sometimes belie their words.