The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

Brooks's 1975 book is famous for one idea — "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" — but the larger argument is more interesting: software projects have an irreducible complexity and a conceptual integrity that no amount of staffing can shortcut. The essays cover the programmer's optimism, the second-system effect, the tar pit of accumulating complexity, the inevitable politics of large teams. Every chapter is older than most of its readers and more accurate than most contemporary writing about the same problems. For product direction this is the founding text on why software timelines are not primarily a staffing problem. The anniversary edition adds reflective essays; read them too.