Question

Explain in your own words what Brooks means by the phrase “Mythical Man-Month” used in the title of his book? Describe a situation where that concept might be of practical use to a project manager.  

(The book is called The Mythical Man-Mouth by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.)

Answer 1

By the phrase "Mythical Man-Month", Brook means the man month,i.e., the amount of work that can be done by a man in a month, is a myth. That means that valueable work done by a man in a month can be measured- this is a myth. It is not possible with proper communication between the workers and there is also a need to interrelate task and the workers who would perform it.

According to brook, if we include more workers to the project, it will delay the result because those workers will firstly take time to understand and get knowledge of every aspect of the project, and communication overhead will also increased.

A situation where it can be of practical use:

Suppose we want to add more people in the project, then the concept "Mythical Man-Month will be of practical use for project manager. As discussed earlier, it would increase the complexity in the communication network and delay the work.

So, before adding more people, project manager must keep this thing in mind that this thing must be properly planned how they should be introduced to the whole team, and how the networks should be set to decrease it's complexity.

Project manager should focus on short bandwidth of team members with specialization only, because lesser the people, better autonomy to perform work, and work will be done in efficient man only.

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