"The Mythical Man Month" by Frederik Brooks, Addison Wesley 1995, ISBN: 0-201-83595-9.

This being a rather old book (the original edition dates back to 1975) in the fast pace fashionable software business, it can be viewed as the bible of software project management (well, at least as the old testament). Must read for anyone who wants to manage a software project.

Link to Amazon: The Mythical Man Month: Essays on Software Engineering

"Tool Support for Project Tracking" by Steve McConnell, IEEE Software Magazine, September/October 1997.

Keywords: version control, project state visibility, project home page, project deliverables. This essay describes the basic philosophy behind our approach of managing a project via intranet home pages. (Remark: we don't like to boast, but this article was published more than a year after we started this technique in our organization).

"Estimates, Uncertainty, and Risks" by Barbara Kitchenham and Stephen Linkman, IEEE Software Magazine, May/June 1997.

Keywords: Sources of estimate uncertainty: measurement error, model error, assumption error, scope error, managing uncertainty and risk, effort estimation procedures

"Gauging Software Readiness with Defect Tracking" by Steve McConnell, IEEE Software Magazine May/June 1997.

Keywords: defect density, defect density targets, defect pooling, defect seeding (fault injection), defect modeling

"Software's Ten Essentials" by Steve McConnell, IEEE Software Magazine, March/April 1997.

Keywords: product specification, user interface prototype, realistic schedule, explicit priorities, active risk management, quality assurance plan, detailed activity lists, software configuration management, software architecture, integration plan, other essentials. Further links: The Software Project Managers Network

"The Little Book of Bad Excuses" by American Systems. You have to register to obtain the material, but it is free. 

It also refers to the "Little Yellow Book of Software Management Questions", to the "Project Analyzer", and to the "Little Book of Configuration Management".

Keywords: project control, quantitative project targets, principal best practices, project caveats

"Annualized Software Delivery" by Steve McConnell, IEEE Software Magazine, January/February 1997.

Keywords: regular release cycles, more efficicient development, separation between incremental enhancements and new development, code deterioration during maintenance, proactive rather than reactive improvements

"Principles of Software Engineering Management" by Tom Gilb, Addison-Wesley 1988, ISBN 0-201-19246-2. This book is designed to help software engineers and project managers to understand and solve the problems involved in developing complex software systems. It provides practical guidelines and tools for managing the technical and organizational aspects of software engineering projects.

Link to Amazon: Principles of Software Engineering Management

"Peopleware" by Tom De Marco and Tim Listner, Dorset House 1987, ISBN 0-932633-05-6. A very entertaining book on project team formation, working environment and other issues regarding "managing the human ressource". Some of it is even true.

Link to Amazon: Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams

"Why does Software cost so much?" by Tom De Marco, Dorset House 1995, ISBN 978-0932633347. Well, if you want to know the answer, you have got to read this book (the answer is given fairly early in the book).