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

...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.

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 programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.

Product procedure...must securely protect the crown jewels, but, equally important, it must eschew building high fences around the garbage cans.