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Weekly
Once a week: 5 things worth your time.
1 story, 1 idea, 1 discovery, 1 tool, 1 book.
The Humanevi newsletter
Once a week: 5 things worth your time.
1 story, 1 idea, 1 discovery, 1 tool, 1 book.
Frederick Brooks's essays on managing software projects, drawn from his experience leading the IBM System/360 operating system effort.
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Brooks coined ideas that still frame debates about schedules, such as the claim that adding people to a late project tends to make it later. The value lies in his reasoning about communication and division of labor, not only the famous line.
Technical leads, project managers and developers who want to understand why estimates fail and why large teams lose speed, with arguments drawn from the practice of a major engineering effort. It also suits anyone who inherited a project already running behind.
The essays grew out of the 1960s and early 1970s, and the book appeared in 1975. The 1995 anniversary edition adds the essay No Silver Bullet and the author's reflections twenty years on. It is short, but best read critically against what has changed since.
Prefer the anniversary edition, since it carries the 1995 chapters on what aged well and what did not. Check that a translation includes those closing texts. It pairs nicely with a newer book on continuous delivery or team management.
