Project Management: Brooks Law, Delays, and Solutions

This discussion post addresses the challenges of project delays, particularly in software development, by referencing Brooks's Law, which states that adding manpower to a late project makes it later. The post identifies indivisible tasks and communication issues as primary contributors to these delays. It then proposes practical solutions, including task trimming to eliminate non-essential tasks and improve manageability, and the implementation of formal meetings, informal discussions, and a project workbook to enhance communication and understanding among team members. The author emphasizes the importance of these strategies based on personal experience, highlighting their role in keeping projects on schedule and maintaining team motivation. The post concludes by advocating for the adoption of these techniques by project managers to mitigate delays and improve project outcomes.

Discussion 1: Managing delays
The Brooks Law says that ‘adding manpower to a late software project will make it later’
(Brooks, 1986). The software projects are measured in three ways one of them is man-month.
It is the productivity of one person in one month. The late projects have problems related to
indivisible tasks and communications. When the tasks related to software are indivisible, that
means that there are interdependencies in the tasks. This makes the division difficult. The
debugging is often sequential and the process of testing and fixation is iterative. Also, the
software projects requires significant amount of communications. This is because people
needs to be trained that involves linear cost as one person cannot be trained with other in
parallel. Also, there are a lot of intercommunications that happen among group, between
person to person, in the e-mails. These are incontrollable. The good communication is vital
for the projects. Therefore, these problems need to be managed.
For managing them, the various concepts can be used related to management. Two of them
have been discussed below:
 Trimming the task: If the project managers trim the task carefully and they eliminate
the non-essential tasks, they can deal with the indivisible tasks. Then, these tasks can
be rescheduled. Even if there are interdependencies in the task, and the tasks are
trimmed, the tasks that are a waste of time can be avoided. If this concept is applied in
practice, then the problem of indivisible tasks can be solved and the project can be
saved from getting delayed.
 Formal Meetings, Informal discussions and project workbook: If the formal meetings
are conducted, the misunderstandings can be reduced. All the project members can
discuss their issues, solve them and find a solution mutually. The overall
understanding of the project enhances too. Everyone gets a chance to speak in the

meetings. When the exchanges are made during meetings, everyone can hear them
and have an idea about what is going on. Similarly, during the informal discussions, a
clear structure of the project can be established. Also, a chaotic environment may
make the exchanges interesting and debatable. Finally, the project workbook will help
in maintain the log of all the communications.
From my personal experience I have felt that meetings and discussions prove to be great help
in completion of the project and keep the people motivated to do something. When
motivation is high, the project gets completed on time.
I would recommend that all the software projects must be completed on time. The delays
should be avoided. There are several problems related to the project but by following the
above solutions, the delay can be avoided to some extent. Therefore, all the project managers
should adopt the above mentioned things while moving ahead with any project.

Reference:
Brooks, F., 1986. The mythical man-month. Tutorial, 11, pp.35-42.