Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
There's a huge latent market for software development that's just flat-out honest.
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Received wisdom is that if you spend time up front getting the design right, you avoid costs later. But the longer you spend getting the design right, the more your upfront costs are, and the longer it takes for the software to start earning.
In almost every job now, people use software and work with information to enable their organisation to operate more effectively.
But I also think that the more you reason collectively about what the project should be at the beginning of the process, the more you can improvise later.
A rational model of software is to design it quickly - the economic pressure to improvise presents an interesting challenge.
How does a project get to be a year late? One day at a time.
Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses - it's progressing. Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set.
Often I feel that projects overwhelm us when we look at how many hours are involved until completion. But just getting started is usually not that difficult.
Most of the effort in the software business goes into the maintenance of code that already exists.