Even when you have skilled, motivated, hard-working people, the wrong team structure can undercut their efforts instead of catapulting them to success. A poor team structure can increase development time, reduce quality, damage morale, increase turnover, and ultimately lead to project cancellation.

Trying to apply formal methods to all software projects is just as bad as trying to apply code-and-fix development to all projects.

The primary purpose of software estimation is not to predict a project's outcome; it is to determine whether a project's targets are realistic enough to allow the project to be controlled to meet them.

The job of the average manager requires a shift in focus every few minutes. The job of the average software developer requires that the developer not shift focus more often than every few hours.

Good code is its own best documentation. As you're about to add a comment, ask yourself, "How can I improve the code so that this comment isn't needed?" Improve the code and then document it to make it even clearer.

It's hard enough to find an error in your code when you're looking for it; it's even harder when you've assumed your code is error-free.

In software, the chain isn't as strong as its weakest link; it's as weak as all the weak links multiplied together.