Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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

[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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @11:56AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @11:56AM (#572617)

    That said, many accredited US colleges have been little more than Java mills since the mid-90's.

    This.
    Reminds me of a comment here on an article about a new programming language. It was a sort of nervous "Why don't people stick to industry standards like C++ and Java!". Goes to show you how fragile the technical abilities of some people can be.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @03:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 25 2017, @03:52PM (#572696)

    C++? Java? Why don't people stick to industry standards like FORTRAN 77 and K&R C?