Re: The optimal size of a Software Development Team

"Dennis Landi" <dennis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:447c4169$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I have seen 4 to 5 man team's work very well. This appears to be a natural
size in both corporation's with Software Engineering Depts. and Software
Dev companies as well, ... in my experience.

Thoughts?


That agrees with my experience as well. See also Fred Brook's classic
'Mythical Man Month' summarised in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

In particular the sections about communication overheads and the 'Surgical
Team'.

"When N people have to communicate among themselves (without a hierarchy),
as N increases, their output M decreases"
....
Group Intercommunication Formula: n(n ? 1) / 2

--
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/gpcp


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