If ten men dig a hole in the ground in 10 days, how long will it take for twenty men to complete the same task? You might answer it by saying, "five". Well, you are right since double the men will put double the effort, finishing the task in half the time. But can you say the same for software projects?

Brook's Law states that "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later." The term was coined by Fred Brooks, in his 1975 book "The Mythical Man-Month". In the book, he discussed how Project Managers tend to lose the sense of practicality of deadlines by increasing the number of men following the person-month approach.

But how can adding more workforce make development slower?

The person-month technique makes certain silent assumptions:
1. Each person works on a different part of the project and need not communicate about his work progress with others.
2. The project is divisible into independent subparts that do not affect each other and can merge without effort and errors.
3. A new person added to the team knows the system as well as a person working from the beginning.

One who has experience in software development can see the flaws in these assumptions. Brook's Law becomes more accurate the later the project is.

credits
www.dzone.com
www.codeburst.io

knowledgebooster