“The Mythical Man-Month” is one of the seminal books in the field of software project management. It was written in 1975, based on experience from the 1960s. Is it even still relevant?

Turns out, it is. Technology may have changed dramatically but people have not. Managing software projects is about managing people, not bits, and creative people engaged in intellectual endeavors are notoriously hard to predict and manage. (Just ask my project manager.)

Fortunately, many of the lessons-learned Brooks’ presents are still relevant today. Some are directly applicable (“adding people to a late project makes it later”) while others are valid with a little interpretation. Still others fly in the face of conventional wisdom. What can we learn from that?

This session will present a modern overview of the ideas presented by Brooks and a look at what we can still learn from them even today.

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Dave Stokes at 16:29 on 26 Jan 2019

Very entertaining while being informative

I love how Larry is able to bring across a whole lot of useful information while still keeping the feeling that it's a fun talk. He is able to avoid dry and boringly delivering a talk about a topic that has the chance that it becomes dry and boring. Thanks Larry!

Miro Svrtan at 18:25 on 28 Jan 2019

Brilliant talk, it's amazing how we don't learn from the history: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Great talk. Very informative but also entertaining. It got me inspired to read the book.
Also bonus points for having to answer questions from Marco. (He is always watching)

Tim Huijzers at 00:21 on 30 Jan 2019

great to see how we don't have to be ashamed of all the mistakes we make just as long as we can learn from them but maybe after 60 years we can stop making those same mistakes now?