Nine people can't make a baby in a month. — Fred Brooks

Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

Author: Fred Brooks

Insight: You can't speed up certain things no matter how many resources you throw at them—some tasks have inherent limits. It's why dumping more people on a project halfway through often makes it slower, not faster. The lesson stings because we're always tempted to try anyway.

Source: The Mythical Man-Month, p. 16, 1975

/Quotes

Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

Fred BrooksThe Mythical Man-Month, p. 16, 1975

Insight

You can't speed up certain things no matter how many resources you throw at them—some tasks have inherent limits. It's why dumping more people on a project halfway through often makes it slower, not faster. The lesson stings because we're always tempted to try anyway.

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Fred Brooks

Fred Brooks is an American computer scientist known for his work at IBM and later as a professor at the University of North Carolina. He is best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 mainframe computer and for authoring the influential book "The Mythical Man-Month" on software project management.

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