Chapter 11: Working with Small Teams

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We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

—Falsely attributed to Petronius Arbiter; more likely Robert Townsend

Overview

Although Petronius Arbiter never said that, the sentiment still rings true: If you don’t pay attention to the dynamics of teamwork, a team can be a horribly wasteful thing. But if you do pay attention, a good development team can be a marvelously productive entity, turning out high-quality software in record time. In this chapter, I address some of the issues involved in managing a software development team, with particular attention to geographically distributed teams.

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