Time as a finite resource
Instead of allowing time restraints to hover ambiguously around a project, this essayist urges software engineers (and all collaborative efforts, essentially) to consider the real unit of time for a person's ability to work on a project. This combined measurement integrates time and energy into a madeup unit, "Man-month," which tells an employer how many months of one man's labor a project would take.
Communication and teamwork as a burden
Because of the exponential relationship between a software engineers autonomy and their ability to program, there is a negative consequence to adding members to a team of engineers (there are many tiny decisions, and if that engineer has to report constantly to a team or get approval to solve problems, the problems can bottle neck). Therefore, adding people to a project is only valuable until the team is too large, at which time, the inverse relationship flips hard the other way—making the project late. He says in extreme cases, this problem can actually kill projects entirely.
Realistic expectations
By estimating in real units of time, an engineering team can offer realistic expectations to their project management, employer, and to each other. By understanding that humans are not infinite creatures with infinite power to solve infinite problems, by appreciating the fact that people have to work within the boundaries of real life and real time, an employer can start to see the construction of software in its true nature. This reduces toxicity, because the employer will appreciate the unseen time burdens that computer software can sometimes necessitate.
