Famous Laws and Principles that are referenced in Software Development

Different principles used when discussing Software Development and Delivery processes.

• Conway's law

Organizations which design systems… are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

• Occam's razor

Entities should not be multiplied without necessity. The simplest solution is most likely the right one.

• Halting problem

The problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever.

• Brooks's law

Adding human resources to a late software project makes it later.

• Theory of Constraints

A methodology for identifying the most important limiting factor (i.e. constraint) that stands in the way of achieving a goal and then systematically improving that constraint until it is no longer the limiting factor. In manufacturing, the constraint is often referred to as a bottleneck.

• Pareto principle

For many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

• Conjunction fallacy

Assuming that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.

• Sunk Cost Fallacy

Investments (i.e., sunk costs) justify further expenditures.