Sam Cates
CS 190
Man Month Essay
21 February 2006


	In Mythical Man Month, Brooks talks about the usefulness of having
weekly meetings to discuss policy.  Basically it's a great way to discuss
problems and ambiguities as they come up and ensure that a definitive
solution is decided on which is propogated to everyone.

	When I did a summer UTRA, I was working on a small part of a much
larger project where a similar tactic was employed.  We had weekly meetings
where a single project administrator presided and basically everyone in
the meeting got at a little bit of time to talk about their issues and other
people were able to provide advice or whathaveyou.

	A benefit of this system that Brooks neglects to mention is
an added incentive to be more productive on an individual level.  One way
or another, when you meet with the group, it's going to be evident on some
level how much you accomplished in the previous week.  So, there's a lot of
incentive to be very productive each week and go into each meeting with
either lots of fresh problems to discuss or (less likely) lots of great
news about how well things are going.

	Meeting every week as Brooks describes generates an atmosphere
that seriously encourages open communication which, as long as it doesn't
run unchecked, can only help.  For the reasons that he lists and my added
reason above and probably several other reasons, I think it's a
decidedly beneficial instrument.