The Mythical Man-Month Revisited

jpkunst writes "Ed Willis, over at O'Reilly's ONLamp.com, gives his varied reactions to Fred Brooks' classic The Mythical Man-Month, after 'having finally read it in its entirety'. '[...] simultaneously you can see just how much the field has changed since the original writing and just how much has stayed stubbornly the same.'"

Comments

Re:Man-month?

[wideBlueSkies]

Well, I'm happy to try. Please send me nine of the hottest...um..most fertile looking ones and I'll see how quickly I can get em' to produce babies. Hee Hee.

wbs.

On the other hand, a book to avoid.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Some years back [...] I noticed a (partially emptied) case of the books in the IT manager's office. ([...] He'd already passed them out to everyone on his team.)

Sounds like a good man to work for.

On the other hand, if anyone in upper management EVER starts enthusing about _Crossing the Chasm_, start your next-job hunt IMMEDIATELY and QUIT as soon as you find a good replacement! Do NOT wait for your stock options to vest (they will soon be worthless) and start unloading the ones that have already vested.

_CtC_'s central message is hidden in a line near the end of one of the last chapters. It is: "Screw the early-hires with the big option plans. Only the founders and management deserve the big bucks. The early hires were necessary at the start, but now are overpaid and a drag on the bottom line. They are compulsive drones who have no power to fight you. This action won't even hurt you NEXT time around, because they are obsessed and will be early hires again at the NEXT company. You MUST do this to make your company stable for the long term."

The net result is that the pointy-haired executives, soon after discovering this book, dump the early hires. (And even if the author HAD been right, they do it too soon.) The early hires are the ones who actually had the skills and knowlege, and applied the hard work, to make the founders' hairbrained scheme WORK. As a result they are the repository of the internal knowlege of HOW it works. By dumping them without extracting this knowlege the execs kill maintainence and follow-on, and thus doom the company - starting in a couple years.

Of course by then they've moved on, so the NEXT set of upper management inherets the collapsing house of cards. But meanwhile the people who actually implemented the product are dispersed, and their stock is worthless.

So as soon as you see this infection taking hold, liquidate, cut your losses, and move on.