16. Mismanaging software development
In his seminal book "The Mythical Man-Month," Frederick Brooks posited that planning projects based on "man-months" ultimately does not work due to the unique nature of software development. Yet, 30 years later, many IT managers still cling to this disproved strategy, naïvely staffing projects with the right number of people for a defined amount of work when getting quality people is more important. Of course, waiting for superhuman coders to come along is a lousy staffing strategy. Rather than obsess over "10x developers," focus on building 10x teams. You'll have a much larger talent pool to choose from, meaning you will fill vacancies and your project will ship sooner. Another mistake of software development: Thinking the job is done when the software is delivered.
