Brooks's Law
Origin
From Fred Brooks's 1975 "The Mythical Man-Month", reflecting on the IBM OS/360 project. His insight: nine women cannot make a baby in one month. Software has irreducible serial work; new members spend time learning context; communication channels grow n². More people does not mean faster work.
Meaning
When a project manager misses a deadline, the first instinct is "add people". Brooks showed this is precisely wrong. Adding people is good only early; late-stage requires reducing scope, slipping deadlines, or removing people.
Lesson — Meeting Eastern Classics
Analects: "Excess is as bad as deficiency." Understaffing is a problem; overstaffing can be worse. Brooks applied Confucius's ethic of the Mean to software engineering.
"增" combines earth (土) with repetition (曾) — to pile earth higher. Analects: "A gentleman harmonizes without uniformity." Mere 增 cannot harmonize. Brooks's Law breaks the illusion of 增 — piling more of the same earth does not build a different mountain.
