The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)

This book is a classic on Software Engineering and one of the most often quoted ones. Fred Brooks experienced first hand the development of a huge-scale software development project, the IBM/360, and has learned valuable lessons which he shares in the book. If you're interested in computer science history you will enjoy the description of the pains and joys of software development some decades ago. The article "No Silver Bullet" included at the end of the book is in my opinion the best essay on Software Engineering ever.

The philosophy of this book is very similar to lean thinking in that:
a. The more hands touching the software, the more time built into the process - partitioning a task builds in extra time (training and communication).
b. Advocates employee ownership relative to the specific work that they do.
c. Speaks to flow (appropriate people touching the product at the correct time) and teamwork (rewards, interaction and stimulation along with team fusion)
d. Speaks to a system of incremental building (improvements)
e. Value is focused on the customer ("happy user" test)
f. Willingness to accept better ideas/processes
g. Team approach to creating value rather than seeking credit; delegating power down and allowing teams to own the process - "...the quality of the people on a project, and their organization and management, are much more important factors in success than are the tools they use or the technical approaches they take."
h. Interchangeable talent
i. Honesty and encouragement in disclosing status
j. Milestone reports (value-added steps)

Both Dr. Brooks' original and anniversary book is outdated. The original 1975 was written based on experiences in the 60's and 70's while the 1995 anniversary edition is just a reprint along with chapters/articles written in the late 80's and early 90's. As good and fun-reading as classics are, Software Engineering is not like Archeology and Anthropology where past tools and technology are intently studied and cherished. Dr. Brooks time is long gone and he even admits it; so are the experiences he has in the book. Focus should be placed on more current books that take into account things like object-oriented programming, UML, extreme programming, class-generation software (e.g Microsoft Visio) and other modern tool... which are before the time of the Mythical man-month books. Despite some good information in the book I would not spend much time on it.

Most of the the essays in here are now common sense for any project manager. A lot of the information is obviously dated, its now over 20 years old. However, it is interesting for a historical perspective as well as to see how terminology has changed and developed.

If you're new to project management, or if you are involved in project management at any level, read this book. Its short, and a number of chapters don't apply anymore. They all hold good (and in some cases interesting even though obscelete) information.