3 ms·

Surgical teams work under very specific constraints such as a tight time limit, mostly repetitive/practiced tasks, limited concurrent work (only so many hands c

Surgical teams work under very specific constraints such as a tight time limit, mostly repetitive/practiced tasks, limited concurrent work (only so many hands can fit inside a patient), team size limited by physical constraints of operating room, etc. Trying to apply this approach to other domains with different constraints, even if only philosophically, seems inherently an ill fitting idea.

pseudalopex 5y ago
It's just a memorable metaphor. Brooks advocated a small team of specialists and assistants supporting a hands on lead because it's a good way to develop software. Not because it's good for surgery.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nwhatt 5y ago
Mythical Man-Month isn't trying to say "surgical teams work well - let's apply that approach to software". Instead, it's an analogy to explore Fred Brook's thoughts on 10x programmers and "building systems with as few minds as possible". Brook's attributes the idea to Harlan Mill's paper "Chief programmer teams, principles, and procedures" - which I can't find online, but I'd be curious how Mills treats the analogy.
Mauricebranagh 5y ago
Having done this it does work well - a lot better that the botched Agile/Scrum solutions that many struggle with.
- marcinzm 5y ago
  Most every methodology when applied properly to a well functioning organization will work better than a methodology applied to a random company. Which says less about the methodology and more about how most companies are dysfunctional and no methodology will magically make them better. So comparing average X to optimal Y isn't I feel a fair comparison.
  - Mauricebranagh 5y ago
    Just but you lose the self appointed scrum masters with no real code experience
throwaway316943 5y ago
It’s metaphor illustrating the difference between a surgical team and a hog butchering team i.e. instead of everyone cutting away at the problem, just one person does the cutting while the others support him.
zby 5y ago
The surgical team has limited size because of physical constraints - the software team does not have such a strict size limit. But we have seen that bigger teams get very very slow so we want small teams - so we look for ways to make the team smaller. It is useful to copy ideas from one domain to another one - it is called advanced analog field. For example the ABS system in breaks was developed for aircraft - but later someone observed that it would also be useful in cars even though they don't have the same operating constraints. http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books/DI/Chapter10.pdf http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books/DI/Chapter10.pdf

pseudalopex 5y ago

It's just a memorable metaphor. Brooks advocated a small team of specialists and assistants supporting a hands on lead because it's a good way to develop software. Not because it's good for surgery.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

nwhatt 5y ago

Mythical Man-Month isn't trying to say "surgical teams work well - let's apply that approach to software". Instead, it's an analogy to explore Fred Brook's thoughts on 10x programmers and "building systems with as few minds as possible". Brook's attributes the idea to Harlan Mill's paper "Chief programmer teams, principles, and procedures" - which I can't find online, but I'd be curious how Mills treats the analogy.

Mauricebranagh 5y ago

Having done this it does work well - a lot better that the botched Agile/Scrum solutions that many struggle with.

marcinzm 5y ago
Most every methodology when applied properly to a well functioning organization will work better than a methodology applied to a random company. Which says less about the methodology and more about how most companies are dysfunctional and no methodology will magically make them better. So comparing average X to optimal Y isn't I feel a fair comparison.
- Mauricebranagh 5y ago
  Just but you lose the self appointed scrum masters with no real code experience

throwaway316943 5y ago

It’s metaphor illustrating the difference between a surgical team and a hog butchering team i.e. instead of everyone cutting away at the problem, just one person does the cutting while the others support him.

zby 5y ago

The surgical team has limited size because of physical constraints - the software team does not have such a strict size limit. But we have seen that bigger teams get very very slow so we want small teams - so we look for ways to make the team smaller. It is useful to copy ideas from one domain to another one - it is called advanced analog field. For example the ABS system in breaks was developed for aircraft - but later someone observed that it would also be useful in cars even though they don't have the same operating constraints. http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books/DI/Chapter10.pdf http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books/DI/Chapter10.pdf