"If we add more people, it'll finish faster, right?"
When developers hear this, they often sigh internally.
"Actually, it might take longer."
Have you heard of Brooks' Law? It's a 50-year-old principle stating "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later," and it remains true today.
Today, let's explore resource allocation secrets, one of the most challenging aspects of WBS.
The Team Size Paradox
Exponential Communication Overhead
As teams grow, communication paths increase exponentially:
# Communication paths by team size
# Formula: n × (n-1) / 2
3-person team: 3 paths
5-person team: 10 paths
10-person team: 45 paths
20-person team: 190 paths
In a 20-person team, 1 hour per day disappears to communication.
When actually measured, it's more shocking. In teams of 10 or more, developers spend less than 4 hours per day actually coding. The rest? Meetings, reviews, questions, answers, waiting...
The Two-Pizza Rule
There's a rule created by Amazon's Jeff Bezos:
"A team that can't be fed with two pizzas is too large"
Ideal team composition:
- Product Owner: 1
- Backend Development: 2
- Frontend Development: 2
- Designer: 1
- QA: 1
- Total: 7 people
Resource Allocation Reality
1. The Skill Matrix Trap
Many PMs create tables like this:
| Name | React | Node.js | Python | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alice | 5 | 4 | 3 | 80% |
| Bob | 3 | 5 | 4 | 60% |
| Charlie | 4 | 3 | 5 | 100% |
And think: "Put Alice on React, Bob on Node.js, perfect!"
Reality is different.
Even if Alice is a React expert:
- Without project domain knowledge, productivity drops 50%
- Takes 2 weeks to understand existing codebase
- Takes 1 more week to adapt to team coding conventions
2. The Parallel Work Myth
"If we divide work into 10 tasks, 10 people can do them simultaneously, right?"
No.
// PM's imagination
const ideal_timeline = {
'work division': 10,
'people assigned': 10,
'expected duration': '1 week',
};
// Actual reality
const reality = {
'dependency waiting': '30% time waste',
'integration work': 'additional 20% time',
communication: 'additional 25% time',
'actual duration': '2.5 weeks',
};
Effective Resource Allocation Strategies
1. Vertical Division vs Horizontal Division
❌ Horizontal Division (by layer)
- Frontend team / Backend team / DB team
- Problems: Constant coordination, passing responsibility, integration hell
✅ Vertical Division (by feature)
- Login feature team / Payment feature team / Search feature team
- Advantages: Independent progress, clear responsibility, fast feedback
2. Core Team + Support Team Structure
Core Team (3-4 people)
├── Core architecture design
├── Major decisions
└── Final code review approval
Support Team (5-6 people)
├── Specific feature implementation
├── Test writing
└── Documentation
Advantages of this structure:
- Maintain decision speed
- Ensure quality consistency
- Efficient knowledge transfer
3. Resource Buffer Strategy
Never allocate 100%.
# Recommended resource allocation
recommended_allocation = {
"Planned work": 70, # %
"Urgent issue response": 15,
"Code review/mentoring": 10,
"Learning/improvement": 5
}
# Adjustment by experience level
junior_allocation = {
"Planned work": 50, # Lower
"Learning/improvement": 20 # Higher
}
Real Cases: Resource Allocation Failure and Success
Failure Case: The "More Manpower" Trap
A real story from a startup:
Situation: 3-month project, 5-person team
Problem: After 1 month, 20% progress
Wrong decision: Added 5 more people
Result:
- Existing team members spent time training new members
- Communication overhead tripled
- Frequent code conflicts
- Final delay: 2 months
Success Case: "Small Team, Clear Boundaries"
Same company, next project:
Approach:
- Divided into 3 teams of 3 people each
- Assigned independent microservices to each team
- Only pre-defined API contracts
- Full synchronization only once per week
Result: Completed 2 weeks early
Resource Optimization Tools and Techniques
1. Resource Heatmap
# Visualize workload by team member
resource_heatmap = {
"Mon": {"Alice": 120, "Bob": 80, "Charlie": 100},
"Tue": {"Alice": 100, "Bob": 120, "Charlie": 80},
"Wed": {"Alice": 80, "Bob": 100, "Charlie": 120},
# ... (% shown)
}
# 120% or more: Overload (red)
# 80-120%: Appropriate (green)
# Less than 80%: Available (blue)
2. Skill-Task Matching Algorithm
It's not simply "Person good at React = React task":
Considerations:
- Current workload
- Domain knowledge
- Growth desire
- Knowledge distribution within team
3. Pair Programming Rotation
// Weekly pair rotation
const pair_rotation = {
'Mon-Tue': [
['Senior', 'Junior'],
['Mid', 'Mid'],
],
'Wed-Thu': [
['Senior', 'Mid'],
['Junior', 'Mid'],
],
Fri: 'Individual work / Refactoring',
};
// Effects:
// - Maximize knowledge sharing
// - Improve code quality
// - Reduce bus factor
Resource Management in the Remote Work Era
Utilizing Time Zone Differences
Korean Team (09:00-18:00 KST)
↓ Handoff
US Team (09:00-18:00 PST)
↓ Handoff
European Team (09:00-18:00 CET)
24-hour development is possible, but handoff documentation is key.
Async Collaboration Tools
- Work progress: Plexo's WBS real-time updates
- Code review: GitHub PR async comments
- Decision making: Notion RFC documents
- Daily sync: Loom video standup
Golden Rules of Resource Allocation
- Small teams beat large teams
- 5-7 people is optimal
- Consider division beyond that
- Balanced team over one expert
- Superstar dependency is risky
- Invest in improving entire team capability
- 70% Rule
- Allocate maximum 70% to plan
- 30% reserved for unexpected events
- No Rotation
- Consider context switching cost
- One person to one project
-
Provide Growth Opportunities
- Don't give all work only to experts
- Juniors also need challenging tasks
Conclusion: Less Input, More Output
"Doubling manpower halves duration" is a fantasy.
Realistic formula:
- What takes 3 people 3 months
- 6 people → 2.5 months (ideal case)
- 9 people → 3 months (same or longer)
Resource allocation isn't simple arithmetic. It's a complex optimization problem that must consider team dynamics, communication costs, knowledge sharing, and motivation.
In your next project, ask "how?" first, not "how many?"
Need efficient resource management and WBS? Check out Plexo.
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