Book | The Mythical Man Months by Fredericks Brooks (1995)

​The purpose of organization is to reduce the amount of communication and coordination necessary.

"The Mythical Man-Month" by Frederick Brooks is written in 1975. It is a legendary book about software development that every self-respecting development professional should read, even today.The version we read is the anniversary copy created in 1995 - 20 years after the book was first published. Brooks analyzed what is still relevant and what is not, which is helpful for us to know. The book is centered around  a key claim: software engineering is inherently complex and challenging, like a tar pit where larger creatures (projects) are more likely to get trapped. The possibility of measuring useful work in man-months is a myth. Here, we summarize some of the influential concepts presented by the author.

Effort doesn't always equal progress. "Good cooking takes time; some tasks cannot be hurried without spoiling the result. "Sometime, we have to take our time, and our plan is based on our time estimation. However, the challenge is, "Because we are uncertain about our scheduling estimates, we often lack the courage to defend them stubbornly against management and customer pressure." 

Software development projects need proper "Planning and Control"  to ensure timely completion. Project managers closely monitor the project execution status to prevent delays that can lead to a year-long delay. Effective control measures are necessary to keep everyone working in the same direction and ensure that any missed deliveries are acknowledged quickly. This involves tightening feedback loops, breaking down work with estimations, and making all team work visible.

Adding people doesn’t means better performance. Per Brooks's Law, "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. ", which tells us that adding someone to a late project can only delay the task. This is because overhead costs are often associated with the work and disruption of repartitioning itself, training the new people, and added intercommunication.​

​Software development is more about managing people than the technology itself. This means having a high-quality team is much more important than simply having access to the latest tools and technologies. Per the research, the superstar's performance is 10x of the others. Therefore, ​"The manager's function is not to make people work. It is to make it possible for people to work." (Dorothy ​DeMarco from Peopleware)

Software development needs a Surgical Team to maintain the conceptual integrity of a project. This requires "The architect is also the user's agent, knowledgeably representing the user's interest in the inevitable tradeoffs among function, performance, size, cost, and schedule," The architect oversees the overall design and readiness of the development process to ensure product quality. Brooks called this a Surgical Team because it is similar to a surgeon and their support staff, where the surgeon leads the main effort, and all other staff members support them to complete the mission.

Communication is critical to a project's success. "Teams should communicate with one another in as many ways as possible: informally, by regular project meetings with technical briefings, and via a shared formal project workbook." as projects get big, it's also necessary to murder lies, stopwatches, create a simple, interface and to hide unnecessary information from each cell project to improve efficiency.

​If you plan to manage a software development team, read this book and more articles and books suggested by Brian’s Note.