Page 152 - Straight Talk On Project Management IV

Repealing Brooks’ law: how to manage IT projects without constraints

Brooks' law is an observation about IT project
management which states "adding human resources to
a late software project makes it later"

It was written by Fred Brooks in 1975, in his book 'The
Mythical Man-Month'.
It is a 'law' that I've always believed to be
fundamentally flawed and ripe for breaking. The fact
that it is still quoted in 2019 is a cause for major
concern to me AND yet, there I was recently on a
conference call with a Project Manager friend as he
begged for extra resources to bring his late project
home and one of the C-suite suits quoted this 1975 'law'
as a legitimate reason for refusal.

"The Mythical Man-Month" is actually a really good read but like most things written in 1975, parts
of it have stood the test of time and some of it is less relevant now than it was then.

"Fawlty Towers" was first aired in 1975 and I laugh out loud at most of it and cringe a little at others
- the stereotype Irish cowboy builder O'Reilly, for example. Things move on, attitudes and tastes
change. "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "You're My Best Friend" from Queen's 1975 album 'A Night At
The Opera' still sound as fresh as the first day I heard them. "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" from
the same album, on the other hand, sounds really cheesy now!

The point is that, in 1975, Project Managers considered time as one of the three key external
constraints imposed on a project and most gave it equal billing with other constraints, namely scope
and cost. You'll have seen the triangle, sometimes known as the triple constraint, with time on one
of the three sides and scope and cost on the others. The project management triangle or iron
triangle was probably a huge part of your project management schooling. The belief being, that you
cannot alter one constraint without changing at least one of the other two. Over time other
constraints namely quality, risk, and resources were added but somehow, for many, this limiting
belief remained that chasing one constraint would impact the others and have an overall
detrimental effect on the project.

Brooks' law was written in the days before Project Management as a Service was a thing. The PMaaS
universe is forever expanding and I have yet to find an IT Project challenge for which there is no
PMaaS solution. Brooks' law, actually the whole concept of constraints, doesn't reflect the state of
the profession now. Imagine playing football by the rules, laws and technological capabilities of
1975, the goalkeeper would be allowed to pick up a back pass, a challenge from behind (that would
see you sent off now) would be perfectly acceptable and imagine relying on 1975 action replay
standards to make a VAR decision - "we can't see if he's offside because of the large flashing
pixelated R"!
These days, most IT Projects have a very real, strategic business value attached to them. IT Projects
deliver business change in highly competitive industries; an IT Project must deliver the maximum
return on investment (ROI) and deliver it as soon as possible.