When To Re-Staff A Late Project - An E-Cargo Approach

Brooks' law is popular in software development. It has been used as a reference for managing software projects for over four decades. However, not enough investigations express this law in a quantitative way that can provide specific project recommendations at critical times in the development process. This paper offers a quantitative way based on our research vehicle of Role-Based Collaboration and the related Environments-Classes, Agents, Roles, Groups, and Objects (E-CARGO) model. The proposed approach is verified by simulations, experiments and a case study. The results produce insights into Brooks' law, and quantitatively present the applicable scope of the law. This contribution is believed to be significant because it provides a quantitative measurement useful in the development of a software project.