Amazon.com description: Product Description: Software development projects have always held the promise of greater efficiency or increased automation, but today's business projects are no longer satisfied with automating existing ways of competing in the market place - they want to transform the markets themselves. Developing Business Objects brings together the experiences of the practitioners who pioneered the use of object-oriented methods and languages in commercial applications, and presents their experiences of applying and succeeding (and in some cases failing) with object technology. Since each chapter of the book is firmly grounded in the real world of people, budgets, deadlines, successes and failures, it cuts through the hype to the real issues that affect the quality and productivity of every software engineering endeavor. The book includes sections on the need for 'concurrent engineering' (all phases of a traditional life cycle happening in parallel and the advantages and difficulties this brings), the importance of understanding the business purpose rather than automating what currently exists, and the importance of effective management of change.