Engineering Truisms

This is a brief collection of quotes, laws, and truisms that I've gathered over the years.  I've kept those that have consistently proved themselves across organizations and projects during my career.

-- Teamwork & Communication --

"Generally, it's better to be specific"
 
Hanlon’s razor - Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.

Never let your ego get so close to your position that when your position goes, your ego goes with it. -- Collin Powell
 
Parkison’s Law of Triviality aka Bike Shedding - "Members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues” 
 
Metcalf's Law - Communication scales quadratically: n (n - 1) / 2

-- Projects & Planning --

"No plan survives contact with the enemy"
"Strategy is a system of expedients" -- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
 
Brook’s Law -  "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later"
 
Hofstadter's Law -  “It always takes longer than you expect, even taking into account Hofstadter's law"
 
Parkinson’s Law - "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"
 
The Napolean Technique - Delay addressing a non-critical issue until toward its deadline.  Most of the time it will sort itself out.

-- Leadership --

"Fatigue makes cowards of us all." -- Vince Lombardi

"An officer on duty knows no one."
 
"The discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. It is possible to impart instruction and give commands in such a manner and such a tone of voice as to inspire in the soldier no feeling, but an intense desire to obey, while the opposite manner and tone of voice cannot fail to excite strong resentment and a desire to disobey. The one mode or other of dealing with subordinates springs from a corresponding spirit in the breast of the commander. He who feels the respect which is due to others cannot fail to inspire in them respect for himself. While he who feels, and hence manifests, disrespect towards others, especially his subordinates, cannot fail to inspire hatred against himself." -- John M. Schofield
 
"I can not drink alone, nor can I divide so small a quantity among all. I do not thirst for myself, but for the whole army." -- Rhodolph of Hapsburg
 

-- System Design --

Principle of parsimony - Simpler is better

Demeter’s Law - Principle of least privilege
 
 "A place for everything and everything in its place"
 
Escalators not Elevators - A design that can fail but allow the overall operation to continue to function
 
Hyrum's Law - All observable behaviors in a system should be regarded as relied upon, regardless of I/O contract
 
Chesterton's fence - "Reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood"
 
"Perfection is achieved only by organizations on the point of collapse"  -- C. Northcote Parkinson

Conway’s Law - Organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations (don’t ship the org chart)
 
Gall’s Law - A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked.

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