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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, @11:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 24 2017, @11:56PM (#572486)

    I have a small list of 'very smart' guys who I would never recommend. I have a very LONG list of 'very smart' guys who I would work with again in a heartbeat.

    Your and my point is toxic behavior is not endemic to just smart people. I know one dude who is the biggest raging douchebag I have ever met, and he is probably in the 70ish iq range. Being smart does not mean they are good to work around. They can poison a whole group dynamic and chase off anyone who could be very helpful. A few bad apples can sink a project fast.

    One of the people on my short list is a full on narcissist. Could be an excellent coder and manager. He will never achieve that. Once I recognized they symptoms he was very easy to deal with. He wanted his ego stroked and to be 'in charge'. I having grown up with that sort of thing gave him neither and made sure once he showed his colors he got nothing. I give everyone a pretty long rope, because shit happens. But once you cross that 'line' forget it.