Fred Brooks Quotes

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

I think one key part of doing more with less is to be more strategic, to realize what the objectives you're truly trying to accomplish are and then to drive with greater focus towards those objectives.

I try to be as efficient as possible because in my process, I think that actually helps the work. I like having the pressure of time and money and really trying to stick to the parameters we've been given.

It is much easier to put existing resources to better use, than to develop resources where they do not exist.

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil. Yet we should not pass up our opportunities in that critical 3%

Frankly, we don't have the resources to go everywhere and do everything.

Necessity, the mother of invention

A lot can be accomplished with current resources if we don't stand around wringing our hands because of lack of funding or complex requirements.

At the end of the day, leaders have to come up with pragmatic solutions that work

It's not the number of trucks parked outside that make a movie interesting but if you have more money, you have more time. More time enables you to try out other possibilities or follow an interesting lead. I don't like indulgence, but to have more possibilities is always more interesting.

I do think - the metaphor I always use - it's the role of intelligence community to stay down in the engine room and shovel that intelligence coal, and people on the bridge get to decide where to drive the ship and how fast and how to arrange all the deckchairs.

The very name of my subject, economics, suggests economizing or maximizing. But Political Economy has gone a long way beyond home economics.

I have learned, if you give a team a budget, then the team tries to maximise the budget so that they get the same next year.

For me, the scale of the budget is part of the creative process. 'Swingers' is the movie it is because we made it for exactly the right budget. Had it been made for a higher number, it would not have been as imaginative as we had to make it, given the budget constraints we had.

If you ask anybody at Microsoft, could they spend more money, all of them would say yes. They should say that! They should say, 'Yes, I have so many terrific innovative, interesting, awesomely impactful ideas that you have to get me more money.' I love that. I love that energy, and I listen to some really fascinating arguments.

I want to take a close look at the SBA to see what works, what doesn't, what is duplicative, and what isn't even being utilized. We'll focus on what they do well and strengthen those areas.

Once you establish what activities your company needs to do, the next question is, 'How do these activities get accomplished?' i.e. what resources do I need to make the activities happen?

Lists are based on realism - on the coldly contemplated finitude of resources.

Don't bring on the design engineers too soon. One of the worst things you can do in the early phases of a project is to bring on a bunch of detailed design engineers and then not give them clear direction and close supervision.

We need to quit arguing about whether the glass is half full or half empty - and instead acknowledge that there's not quite enough water to go around.

Don't start vast projects with half-vast resources.

You're a smart person. You're going to figure out where you can be more effective and more efficient with your own resources, and that's going to put more of an investment and emphasis on your future.

I think that we're trying to look at all of our assets and figure out what's the best use and where we need to make investments in infrastructure to enable the projects that we want.

I don't want projects to take 10 years to set up. That adds to the cost.

System: Save yourself time, energy and money.