by John Macdonald | Apr 18, 2024 | The250
Adding manpower to a late (software) project makes it later. As people get promoted into increasingly higher positions within an organization, they start to lose their minds. Like they’ve never been the person in the trenches and have never experienced or... by John Macdonald | Apr 17, 2024 | The250
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. “Murphy’s Law” originated in the late 1940s at Edwards Air Force Base. Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was an engineer working on an experiment designed to determine how much sudden deceleration a person could... by John Macdonald | Apr 16, 2024 | The250
The cognitive limit to the number of stable social relationships that one can maintain is around 150. Kevin Kelly wrote a famous blog post about “1000 True Fans.” If you’re someone who makes things, or making things happen, you should read... by John Macdonald | Apr 15, 2024 | The250
The attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse through unintended consequences. Economic theory states that you usually get what you incentivize properly. This one is closely related to Goodhart’s Law. Colonial India had a live... by John Macdonald | Apr 14, 2024 | The250
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. One of my friends and I have a funny little tension around the scheduling of software development work. We call it the 3X fudge factor. I look at the work he’s to do... by John Macdonald | Apr 13, 2024 | The250
Adding extra capacity sometimes leads to worse overall performance. “More is better.””If I just had more money.””That’s easy for you, you have more money/time/land/etc.” We often conflate abundance with advantage. It can be....