The Mythical Man-Month
Brooks, Fred 1995. The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley.
Usage
This source is considered a primary reference for the following articles:
- Enabling Teams
- Team Capability
- Systems Engineering and Software Engineering
- The Nature of Software
- Key Points a Systems Engineer Needs to Know about Software Engineering
Annotation
The Anniversary Edition of The Mythical Man-Month is a second edition of the original text, published in 1975 about Fred Brooks' experiences in organizing and managing a large software project within IBM in the 1960s (OS/360). In the anniversary edition, Brooks kept the original text and added four new chapters that include his famous paper No Silver Bullets; commentary on the paper; and topics that remain valid, and are no longer valid, after 20 years. Although the technology mentioned in the text is far outdated (e.g., no more microfiche for documentation), the text remains a best seller because the focus of the text is on organizing, leading, and managing projects and teams. Although the focus is on software projects, the topics addressed and the lessons learned are applicable to all kinds of systems engineering projects. The text remains a best seller in the second decade of the 21st century.