# The Mythical Man-Month Fred Brooks, Anniversary Edition, 1995. ## Chapter 2 Men and months are interchangeable commodities only when a task can be partitioned among many workers with no communication among them. **Key Idea:** The man-month as a unit for measuring the size of a software project is a dangerous and deceptive myth. **Brooke's Law:** Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. The maximum number of men depends upon the number of **independent subtasks**. ## Chapter 3 A small, sharp team of first-class people is better than a project with hundreds of mediocre programmers. ## Chapter 7 The programmer is most effective if shielded from (rather than exposed to) the details of construction of system parts other than his own. If there are n workers on a project, there are n(n-1)/2 possible communications that must occur, and there are potentially 2^n teams which must be coordinated. 1. Division of labor 2. Specialization of function Organizations must be designed around the people available; not people fitted into pure-theory organizations. **Key Idea:** The job done least well by project managers is to utilize technical genius. ## Chapter 8 Programming productivity may be increased as much as five times when a suitable high-level language is used. ## Chapter 10 **Conway's Law:** Organizations that design systems are constrained to produce systems that are copies of the communication structures of these organizations. ## Chapter 11 - Plan the system for change - Plan the organization for change - Abolish job titles (dual career ladder with same salary scales) The total cost of maintaining a widely used program is typically 40% or more of the cost of developing it (proportional to the number of users). ## Chapter 14 Two studies of estimating behavior by government contractors show that: 1. Estimates before activity starts do not significantly change no matter how wrong they are. 2. During the activity, overestimates of duration come steadily down as the activity proceeds. 3. Underestimates do not change significantly during the activity until about three weeks before scheduled completion. Chronic schedule slippage is a morale-killer. ## Chapter 15 Lack of documentation! ## Chapter 16 **Key Idea:** No silver bullet! Present-day software acquisition procedures assume that one can specify a system in advance, get bids for its construction, have it built, and install it. WRONG! **SOLUTION:** Iterative development and specification of prototypes and products. **Great designers!** ## Chapter 17 Noone in the industry has said, "I have used this methodology, tool, or product, and it gave me a tenf-old improvement in software productivity." **Key Idea:** Focus on quality and productivity will follow! **Reuse** requires (1) good design and (2) good documentation. ## Chapter 18 Book Outline! ## Chapter 19 The Power of Giving Up Power Creativity comes from individuals and not from structures or processess (such as technologies, methodologies, etc.). **Key Idea:** Organize enterprises to maximize the creativity and joy of the workers.