- Published: January 16, 2022
- Updated: January 16, 2022
- University / College: La Trobe University
- Level: Undergraduate
- Language: English
- Downloads: 19
Brooks’ Law Brooks’ law is among the widely known principles of software development. The law was raised by Fred Brooks through a man-month analogy. According to this law, adding manpower to a late software makes it late (Landberg, 2006). In terms of project development, the law states that when personnel is added to a project team when the project is already late, the project’s time would lengthen rather than shorten. This law can be justified by the fact that the ramp up time, which is the amount of time required by the new member to learn the dynamics of the project’s development, is complex (Lunce et al. 2003). Complexity of this time is due to a complex nature of software projects (Walker et al. 2006). Another justification for the law is the fact that additional staff increases communication expenses and thus delay in result.
Most projects require a team that will ensure coordination of all its aspects from start to the end. Project management will, for this reason, require proper integration of people to ensure success of people (Lunce, 2003). Integration of many people into a project affect the outcome by geometrically increasing communication expenses and by reducing the number of experienced personnel need for the actual project development. A geometrical increase in communication overhead will reduce development productivity and the amount of time available for the development of the project (Walker et al. 2006). Experienced personnel also are reduced since they take their time to train new personnel. These new tasks burden the already overloaded workers. Giving these tasks also comes with a need for added coordination and re-planning and more time lost in interchanging development and training.
The whole project development is likely to over-react if the adjustments triggers the schedule pressure (Walkewr et al. 2006). The worst case can be an increase in the estimated project duration. Integration of many people, for this reason, hinders the faster realization of the intended results.
References
Brill, J. M., Bishop, M. J., & Walker, A. E. (2006). The competencies and characteristics required of an effective project manager; a web-based Delphi study. Educational Technology Research and Development, 54, 2, 115-140.
Mayfield, M., Mayfield, J., & Lunce, S. (2003). Human resource information systems: A review and model development. Advances in Competitiveness Research, 11(1), 139-151.
Landberg, S. (November 2006). Enabling Human Resources; Technology is a key component to helping improve the return on human capital. Bests Review.