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THE LAWS OF SOFTWARE PROCESS
cooperative behavior is one of the key elements of being able to success-
fully create systems.
The processes that operate in this domain represent the “organism” of
the project. This differentiates it from the “mechanism” of projects and
organizations. The organic components of projects are the people-based
ones that operate on peoples’ behavior rather than their tasks. For
instance, as a project manager I might mechanistically assign roles to the
people working for me. But will they perform those roles? Equally impor-
tantly, are the roles suitable for them and will they perform those roles
well? Will they invest themselves in the work? Will they apply themselves?
When they encounter problems of their own making will ...