Well, the answer is quite a lot. Personally I bought this book for a masters course, having bought it once before for an undergrad course and it scales up very well. Much like the other reviewers I agree it lacks the depth required to make it fully comprehensive (and also the size of War and Peace), but for someone who needs to know this stuff, whether student or otherwise I found it a valuable asset to my learning.

Core understanding to the book is that it isn't going to drop knowledge into your head, this isn't "The idiots guide", it's more a thinking persons book and while giving you the base knowledge will allow you to explore the areas by posing well thought out statements and examples.

Overall, you would buy this book if you want something you'll flick through time and time again, something you can keep on your desk and refer to when you need guidance. This is certainly not a book you'll be using as a door stop (like many others of this type).

It was an invaluable aid to explain the otherwise tortuously explained field of Software methadologies, leaving no stone unturned but at the same time not giving overwhelming levels of detail.
However as a warning, it starts off easy and very quickly builds momentum. HOwever the way the book is structured allows you to use it as a reference, giving excellent examples and decent tutorials that make you think and use the information provided in a constructive way, perfect for actually learning something.
Superb are the first and last few chapters that talk about the issues that permiate the use of methadologies, setting their context and also providing a means to compare and contrast their attributes. The authors always maintain an impartial aspect and when they do voice their opinion you know its an intelligent evaluation of the subject.

Its only drawback is that if you really want to get into the meat of a particular topic then this book is a roadmap at best, it does that very well but for a greater level of detail you really want something more specific, probably from the expert in that particular methadology or field. Thats pretty much the only thing that stops me from giving this a 5 star rating. Otherwise as a course companion this is invaluable!

I am an Information Systems Student in my final year of study, and I have been searching for some time for such a book. I can say that this book is an excellent resource and does a good job of summarising most of the popular methodologies around today. If you are likely to stay in the Information Systems field for a while then it is a fine resource to have.