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I'm all for evidence-based debate, but as I don't have that particular book, could you please provide specific citations?

I am willing to accept that I am wrong if the evidence really says I am, but I remain deeply suspicious of these conclusions on the basis of the data you have provided so far. A typical 50-60 KLOC project is the sort of thing I would expect one or two decent developers to put together in less than a year. I don't know why even a team of 8 people would be working on a project that small under most circumstances, never mind a team of 20-25 people. Of course if you go into the low end of the tail then the communications overheads will dominate development time with that sort of team size, but that's hardly typical of a realistic project with a competent development team.

(I keep using qualifiers like "competent", because I don't think this level of performance requires exceptional developers and managers, but I am ruling out clueless management or developers who aren't good enough to function effectively in a team at all. Of course with such people your supervision and communication overheads go through the roof.)

Edit: Never mind. I found the relevant excerpt of the book you mentioned. You are making a completely unfounded generalisation, extrapolating from data taken in a very specific context, with no logical basis whatsoever. I stand by my previous posts.



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