CS 458 - Week 2 Lecture 2 - 2017-08-31 * discussing MMM - Chapter 2 - "The Mythical Man-Month" ***************** KNOW THIS: Brooks's Law - Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. ***************** * why? * work and disruption due to re-partitioning * training the new people * the added intercommunication ----------------- * "More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." * What are some reasons why scheduling problems are rampant? * untoward optimism - assumption: all will go well * confusion of effort with progress * assumption: people and months are interchangeable ^ why the person-month is dangerous and mythical as a unit for measuring the size of a job (and why it is dangerous to overly depend on it as a basis for scheduling it) * note that, within a typical software project, there are parts that DEPEND on other parts; * cannot (often) insist on making people wait * poor monitoring of schedule progress * dangerous tendency to add warm bodies when scheduling crises occur