9 women can’t make a baby in a month
Article#: 00015
Date: 2020-05-30
Author: Radim
Adding new manpower to a late software project makes it even later. (Fred Brooks's law)
New workers in the project must first be trained.
The training requires experienced employees who therefore have to reduce their participation in the project.
New employees need a certain amount of time before they can contribute efficiently to the project.
They can even make negative contributions if, for example, they introduce errors that move the project further from completion.
Finding and correcting the errors can also occupy the experienced employees and reduce their productivity in the project.
Communication overhead increases with an increasing number of people.
Some tasks cannot be further divided.
Such tasks cannot be efficiently distributed to more people and take the same time to complete, even if several employees are engaged.
The Fred Brooks's law only applies to the projects that are already late.
Projects can be kept under control if people are added earlier in the process.
If the project is really late, or if the schedule was originally too optimistic, correcting the schedule is the best way to get a meaningful and reliable time frame for completing the project.
Then you can add new workers to the undelayed project.
The quality and the role of the people added to the project also must be taken into account.
Good programmers or specialists can be added to the project with less training.
People can also be added for other tasks related to the project. For example: documentation, testing, training etc.
A good segmentation of the project in the first place allows meaningful tasks distribution and helps by minimizing the communication overhead between the team members.
Design patterns also simplify work distribution.
They define the rules that the programmers follow, simplify communication by using a standard language and ensure consistency and scalability.
Reference:
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Comment#: 00001
Date: 2020-07-08
User:
There is a replacement of wisdom (= Knowledge + Practice + Experience + Skills + Lesson Learned from Failures), it is unique with every passionate Leader. Wisdom is out come of not only Success but also the lesson learned from failures.
Comment#: 00002
Date: 2022-12-26
User: Radim
"It is important to distinguish between adding resources to a project that is in trouble and simply reacting in a "knee-jerk" fashion by increasing funding. It is true that, conscientiously applied, additional resources in the form of personnel, support, and money can help a project. This is particularly true in situations in which initial funding was too low, throwing the project's completion into question from the beginning. Howerver, before simply reacting in a panic mode to project troubles, the first step is to conduct a realistic analysis of where the project currently is, how it got there, and how additional funding can bring it back on target."
- Jeffrey K. Pinto, Om P. Kharbanda. Business Horizons (1996). How to fail in project management (without really trying) (Page 50).
Comment#: 00004
Date: 2023-10-04
User: Radim
"Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."
- Plato
Comment#: 00006
Date: 2024-01-05
User: Radim
Let's speed things up!
One man needs one hour to dig a hole 1 meter deep, 1 meter wide and 1 meter long. How much time does it take if you engage 10 men?
ChatGPT: "If one man can dig a hole that is 1 meter deep, 1 meter wide, and 1 meter long in one hour, and you have 10 men working simultaneously, you can divide the time by the number of men to find the total time it takes for the group to complete the task.
So, it would take 1 hour / 10 men = 0.1 hours (or 6 minutes) for the group of 10 men to dig the hole."
Do you agree with ChatGPT's answer?