Scientific Definition
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
Plain-English Definition
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
Feynman Explanation
Nine women can't make a baby in a month.
Core Principle
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Resource allocation discipline.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Nine women can't make a baby in a month.
Examples
- Engineering staffing decisions.
- Resource allocation discipline.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Don't throw bodies at schedule problems. Throw decisions.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Don't throw bodies at schedule problems. Throw decisions.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Combining substances to create a new material stronger than its parts.
A single constraint limits the throughput of an entire system.
A system's throughput is constrained by its single slowest step.
Small visible disorders signal that bigger ones will be tolerated.
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
A substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed.
Nonlinear systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions.
Inputs combine under conditions to produce new outputs — sometimes irreversibly.
Software architecture mirrors org structure.
Working together has a cost that scales with the number of people.
The threshold at which a system becomes self-sustaining.
Designing systems for the lowest-capability user produces resilience for everyone.