How do you keep your sense of humor in the crazy business world? AIAA is pleased to offer the re-release of the updated Augustine's Laws. First published by Viking Penguin, this edition of the management classic has long been out of print. Augustine's Laws is a collection of 52 laws that cover every area of business. Each law formulates a home truth about business life that, once pointed out, is impossible to forget or ignore. Each law is embedded in an entertaining and informative text whose humor brings into sharp focus all the complexities a manger is ever likely to face. Augustine's Laws has been widely praised and quoted in the national media. The book's humor brings solace to all of us trapped in the coils of business perplexity; its sanity and brilliance will suggest multiple escapes and solutions.

Disseminates information concerning new developments and effective actions taken relative to the management of defense systems programs and defense systems acquisition.

Such landmark books as "The Peter Principle, Parkinson's Law", and "Up the Organization" have had an indelible effect on the management culture of our time through their acute visions of the tangles and paradoxes of modern business. To that short list must now be added "Augustine's Laws"--A classic of the genre, a brilliant (and ruefully hilarious) book on the looking-glass world of business management and organizational misbehavior. it offers its readers multiple shocks of recognition and priceless insights into how things might be better run. The fifty-two "Augustine's Laws" set forth here cover every area of business. Each law formulates a home truth about business life that, once pointed out, is impossible to forget or ignore. Each law is imbedded in a literate, droll, quotation-laden text, whose contrapuntal humor brings into sharp focus all the knotty complexities a manager is ever likely to face. As a bonus, readers can also follow, law by law, the cautionary saga of the Daedalus Model Airplane Company, a concern founded in unfounded optimism by two business school graduates, and headed straight for oblivion -but not before every disastrous mistake known to managerial life is made.

Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you. Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others? Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software? Do design patterns actually make better software? What effect does personality have on pair programming? What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart? Contributors include: Jorge Aranda Tom Ball Victor R. Basili Andrew Begel Christian Bird Barry Boehm Marcelo Cataldo Steven Clarke Jason Cohen Robert DeLine Madeline Diep Hakan Erdogmus Michael Godfrey Mark Guzdial Jo E. Hannay Ahmed E. Hassan Israel Herraiz Kim Sebastian Herzig Cory Kapser Barbara Kitchenham Andrew Ko Lucas Layman Steve McConnell Tim Menzies Gail Murphy Nachi Nagappan Thomas J. Ostrand Dewayne Perry Marian Petre Lutz Prechelt Rahul Premraj Forrest Shull Beth Simon Diomidis Spinellis Neil Thomas Walter Tichy Burak Turhan Elaine J. Weyuker Michele A. Whitecraft Laurie Williams Wendy M. Williams Andreas Zeller Thomas Zimmermann

Defence inflation is a recurring factor in determining defence spending. It is widely reported in official government publications and in the trade press, but remains relatively neglected by defence and peace economists. In this book, international contributors from Finland, Norway, Sweden, the UK and the USA distinguish between defence inflation and cost escalation, and identify the causes of both. They use specific case studies to address a wide variety of theoretical and empirical issues and key questions, including the following: Does defence inflation affect all countries? What are its effects? Why does it occur? How (if at all) can defence inflation be controlled? While most industry and trade press devote considerable ink and space to the discussion of defence inflation, cost escalation, and their consequential impact on the purchasing dollars of the armed forces, economists have been relatively silent. This book aims to rectify this oversight through a multinational survey and analysis of the topic, while also identifying the opportunities for further theoretical and empirical research in the field. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Defence and Peace Economics.