Common Laws
Brook's
Law:
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Jones's Law:
The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone he can
blame it on.
First
Law of Debate:
Never argue with a fool - people might forget who's who.
Biondi's Law:
If your project doesn't work, look for the part you didn't think was
important.
Ducharme's Precept:
Perrussel's Law:
There is no job so simple that it cannot be done wrong.
Vile's Law of Communication:
No one is listening until you make a mistake.
Seay's Law:
Nothing ever comes out as planned.
Westheimer's Rule:
To estimate the time it takes to do a task, estimate the time you think it
should take, multiply by two, and change the unit of measure to the next
highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one-hour task.
Cheop's Law:
Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Ninety-Ninety
Rule of Project Schedules:
The first ninety percent of the task takes ten percent of the time; the last
ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
Sevareid's Law:
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
Schopenhauer's Law of Entropy:
If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get
sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get
sewage.
Juhani's Law:
The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions
it is compromising.
Weinberg's First Law:
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
Gummidge's Law: The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the
number of statements understood by the general public.
Shaw's
Principle:
Build a system a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it.
Heller's Law:
The first theorem of management is that it exists.
The
Law of Volunteering:
If you dance with a grizzly bear, you had better let him lead.
The
Law of Avoiding Oversell:
When putting cheese in a mousetrap, always leave room for the mouse.
The
Law of Common Sense:
Never accept a drink from a urologist.
The
Law of Reality:
Never get into fights with ugly people, they have nothing to lose.
The
Law of Self Sacrifice:
When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.
The
Law of Motivation:
Creativity is great, but plagiarism is faster.
Boob's
Law:
You always find something in the last place you look.
Weiler's Law:
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
Law
of Probable Dispersal:
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
Law
of Drunkenness:
You can't fall off the floor.
Law
of Volunteer Labor:
People are always available for work in the past tense.
In any organization there is one person who knows what is going on.
That person must be fired.
Iron
Law of Distribution:
Them that has, gets.
Law
of Cybernetic Entomology:
There is always one more bug.
Osborne's
Law:
Variables won't; constants aren't.
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
Weinberg's
Second Law:
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the
first woodpecker that came along would have destroyed civilization.
1st
Law of Holes:
First step in getting out of the hole your dug for
yourself is to stop digging.
2nd
Law of Holes:
If a boss digs himself into a hole, all subordinates are expected to jump in
with him.
3rd
Law of Holes:
If a subordinate digs a hole, never expect the boss to jump in with him.
4th Law of Holes:
If you expect to miss the holes others have left in your path to success,
stop looking back at the ones you just climbed out of.