Men and months are interchangeable commodities only when a task can be partitioned among many workers with no communication among them.

When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined.

Adjusting to the requirement for perfection is, I think, the most difficult part of learning to program.

Successful software always gets changed.

The boss must first distinguish between action information and status information. He must discipline himself not to act on problems his managers can solve, and never to act on problems when he is explicitly reviewing status.

The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.