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Software Teamwork: Flexibility and Rigor

Dec 28, 2007

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This chapter is from the book 

Software Teamwork: Taking Ownership for Success

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Summary

We need to choose the right balance when guiding the work for our team.

Some elements of our work should be considered sacrosanct. These practices actually become more important as the pressure rises, even though they are often the first to be dropped on most projects.

Other elements can be considered more flexible. These are potentially valuable, given appropriate specific situations. It is always useful to build the capacity into the team to be able to leverage these optional skills, in case the situation arises.

In all cases, it is best that the team has a common understanding of which approaches are the most appropriate, and what the current situation is on the project. In this way, they will have the tools to make the best decisions under the circumstances.

Tactical decisions can support strategic goals only if they are intrinsically linked.

How Is This Relevant?

Balanced approach. Are your software projects run with a reasonable balance of activities? Are key steps skipped so that you can get to what seems important: coding and fixing? Do you follow the equivalent of the basic food groups in deciding what activities to perform? Or, are you subsisting on a junk-food diet? Does your project performance reflect this diet?

Practical focus. Are you defining expected practices at a level that will allow them to be applied to a variety of situations? Can they be easily followed? Are they accessible by the group? Do they provide guidance on how to select appropriate practices? Or, do they define a rigid set of actions?

Shared context. Does everyone have access to important information as they make decisions? Does this include process-based guidance and current project progress?

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