Mythical Man Month: Why more manpower doesn’t mean faster work

If it takes three workers 10 hours to dig a hole, how many hours would it take six workers to dig the same amount? Simple, right? Half the time. But try using that logic where complex projects are involved and you’ll soon become unstuck. It may feel counterintuitive, but adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. This simple guiding principle – known as “Brooks’ Law” – was written by software engineer, Frederick P. Brooks, in his 1975 essay “Mythical Man Month”. Brooks explains that men