Management Myths

Managers like managers in most disciplines with software responsibility are often under pressure to maintain budgets improve quality and keep schedules from slipping.  Such a drowning person who grasps at straw software a manager often grasps at belief in a software myth if that belief will lessen the pressure even temporarily.

Myth:  We already have a book that's full of standard and process for building software. Won't that give my people with everything they require to know?

Reality:  The book of standards may very well exist, but the question is that, Is it used? Are software practitioners aware to its existence? Does it reflect to the modern software development practice? Is it complete?  The answer to these entire question is "no" In many cases.

Myth:  My people do have state of the art software development tools; After all we purchase them the newest computers.

Reality:     It takes much more that PC or the latest model mainframe workstation to perform high quality software development Computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools  are  very important than hardware for achieving productivity and good quality yet the majority of software developers still do not use them.

Myth:   If we find behind schedule we can add more programmers and catch up which is sometimes called the Mongolian horde concept.

Reality:   Software development is not a mechanistic procedure like manufacturing. In the words of Brooks [BRO75], adding people to a late software project makes it later. On the first this statement may seem counterintuitive.  However  as  new  people  are  added  people  who  were  working  must  spend  time education the newcomers hereby reducing the amount of time spent on productive development effort. People can be added but only in well coordinated manner and a planned.