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>Turning around a software project is like turning around a tugboat: it takes a lot of time and energy, and tremendous momentum.

Off-topic sailors nitpick: tugboats are highly maneuverable, what takes a lof of time and energy is turning around a very large container ship with a tugboat

See for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkCqDLR2s78

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Indeed few boats that size are as maneuverable as a tug. It's a good metaphor for a skilled developer: even with that kind of agility, it can take a while to change the direction of something with a huge momentum. And a software project has momentum vectors shooting off in high dimensional space.

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