brooks' law

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Stated by Fred Brooks in his 1975 book The Mythical Man-Month. It is described well by John Drummond: "Brooks' Law states that programming work performed increases with direct proportion to the number of programmers (N), but the complexity of a project increases by the square of the number of programmers (N²). Therefore, it should follow that thousands of programmers working on a single project should become mired in a nightmare of human communication and version control." Brooks' Law is often summarized as 'Nine women cannot have a baby in one month.' It is also often misunderstood. Through some form of magical thinking, many project managers seem to think that not adding resources will somehow make the project come in on time! It is better to understand Brooks' Law as "adding staff LATE to a late software project makes it later." Despite the overhead involved in adding staff, if they are added soon enough, it may be possible to deliver the complete scope on time.

Brooks' Law

See also