Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Adding people to a late project only makes it later. We have known this for decades.

I don’t usually write about current events in this blog, but the front page of the Washington Post was too much to resist. The Health Care dot Gov web site has been a fiasco, but the news is worse:

the Administration is bringing in experts to fix the problems

This is terrible news.

First, adding people to a late project only makes it later. These “experts” will have to come up to speed on what has been done and why. That means the people working on the site have to stop working and start explaining. The delays multiply.

Second, and worse than the first, we know this. We have known for decades that adding people to a late software project makes it later. How has this little gem of knowledge borne of pain escaped the current group of people in charge?