Teamwork
Don’t wander alone in the jungle of software development.
Quote category five in the Desktop Don Reference (DDR) is about Teamwork. Building great teams is hard. Keeping great teams together and happy for many years is even harder. These might be the two most important skills in software development.
Teamwork
Great teams are magical. I have been lucky to work on several great teams in my career. Great teams will inspire and motivate the individuals within the team and other teams around them.
The following are the three quotes from the Teamwork category with an explanation for each.
None of us is as smart as all of us.
This quote is attributed to Kenneth H. Blanchard. I first saw this quote in a book by Warren Bennis called Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration.
What does it mean to me?
Hire great developers, and encourage them to work together. Together we can accomplish much more than any one of us can alone. Do not fall prey to the hero syndrome. There are no heroes in software development. We all have important roles to play on a team.
The opposite of this quote is also sometimes true. None of us is as dumb as all of us. Do not blindly follow the mob. Be wary of the cult of software, and question everything that seems too good to be true.
It’s not always what you know, it’s often who you know.
I have not been able to attribute this quote to anyone specific. It might just be common advice.
What does it mean to me?
You can’t be the expert in everything. Don’t waste your time. Know your wheelhouse, and know that there are others out there that know other things better than you do. Invest regularly in building your network inside and outside of your team so you know who to call when you have a need that you do not have the skills available to satisfy.
Help is a four-letter word you shouldn’t be afraid to use.
I have not been able to attribute this quote to anyone specific. It might just be common advice.
What does it mean to me?
Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. Learning and progress are more important to successful teams than ego. When you hit the brick wall, it does not benefit you or your team to bang your head against the wall trying things in desperation for days or weeks on end. Absolutely, try and figure stuff out on your own if you can. Establish a threshold of time you think is reasonable to spend attempting to solve a problem, and seek help if you exceed that threshold.
Some advice on relying too much on help. If you keep asking for help with the same problems repeatedly, you will eventually annoy your team. Write what you learn down. Verify your notes are correct with your team, and share them with the team. Refer to your notes when you need help.
That’s all for Teamwork
I hope you enjoyed the read, and will stay tuned for category number six: Education. If you haven’t already, you can read about categories one through four: Simplicity , Quality , Process, and Time.
Thanks for reading!
I am the creator of and committer for the Eclipse Collections OSS project, which is managed at the Eclipse Foundation. Eclipse Collections is open for contributions.
