Agile Software Development - HW9

HW9
Brooks loves his metaphors, and he uses them with great abandon. Yet, they all seem to be of great relevance. Take for example the first chapter: The Tar Pit. It represents large-scale software projects as a tar pit; something that will entrap you further and further as you or your team struggle. This chapter felt the least applicable and understandable to me, but I got the general gist of it.

The next chapter covered The Mythical Man-Month or the conversion of individual time worked into some sort of measurable unit. Brooks asserts that it is not always the best approach to throw a bunch of individuals at a problem. Aptly summarized by his statement "The bearing of a child takes 9 months, no matter how many women are assigned" (17). Ideally you will have specialized or dedicated individuals who will contribute more than a large group of people, where collaboration becomes difficult. It is necessary to toe the line between having enough people working on a problem and having too many people working on a problem. There is a balance in this, and efficiency can begin to decline if you tip the scales too much. Additionally you must consider the effects of bringing in new team members. If for instance you lose a developer, yes you will lose his or her "man-months" but you will also lose man-months while you train the potential new recruit.

This leads to the idea of Surgical Programming. The idea is to have a small, but appropriately sized team that is organized in a very specific and hierarchical way. Essentially, somebody is in charge, and each individual within the group has a little less power and will go to the person above them for decisions. This limits the channels of communication that are available to each member of the group and with that, also limits the 'dissent' that can occur from having an unorganized or democratic group of individuals. I've experienced some of these concepts first hand during startup weekend. My group attempted to create an organized structure and put most of the power in the hands of one leader. It certainly worked better than having everyone on equal ground, but there was still some splinter conversations and decisions made that were not always approved. The flimsy organization did lead to a few minor arguments. If those arguments could've been avoided our efficiency would have likely been much higher.