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Effective Collaboration: You Don't Need Superstar Developers

posted by martyb on Sunday September 24 2017, @03:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the just-need-a-thousand-monkeys dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

[The] main problem here is that software development is not an individual sport. Assessing technical traits means that we are looking at candidates as individuals. At the same time, we will put them in a team context and the project's success will depend on their teamwork. A person's resume or LinkedIn profile says close to nothing about their team skills.

What's more, we know quite a lot about what makes teams effective. Anita Woolley's research on collective intelligence [DOI: 10.1126/science.1193147] [DX] provides extremely valuable insight on the topic. First of all, how do we define collective intelligence? It's basically the skill of a group to solve complex problems. Well, it sounds like the definition of everyday work for software development teams if you ask me.

Why is collective intelligence so important? Exploiting collective intelligence, as opposed to going with the opinion of the smartest person in a room, is a winning strategy. To put in Anita Woolley's words: "Collective intelligence was much more predictive in terms of succeeding in complex tasks than average individual intelligence or maximal individual intelligence."

The power is in the team.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:12PM (#572476)

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    Non-consensual medical interventions to modify the sex characteristics of intersex people take place in all countries where the human rights of intersex people have been explored.[18] Such interventions have been criticized by the World Health Organization, other UN bodies such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and an increasing number of regional and national institutions. In low and middle income countries, the cost of healthcare may limit access to necessary medical treatment at the same time that other individuals experience coercive medical interventions.

    (Wikipedia [wikipedia.org])