Benefits and pit-falls

Working on a software project as part of a team is a very different experience from working on a solo project. There are of course great advantages to having multiple people working on a problem, but there are also some pit-falls that need to be avoided, and overheads that cannot be avoided.

Benefits of working in a team

• Each person has different areas of expertise
• More person-hours available
• Group discussion leads to better decision making
• Group members can learn from each other faster than they can learn from a book/website
• Seeing how others work and solve problems can help you learn new skills that you didn’t know you needed
• Bug-fixing is easier when you have an informed buddy to talk to
• Work can be assigned to people with the most relevant skills increasing efficiency
• Dividing the development and testing of a work item between two people can make for better code and more complete tests

Pit-falls to avoid

• Siloing work:
  • Separating work items can be a good idea but there needs to be frequent check-ins to ensure that the software being developed by two people is not diverging or conflicting
• Inconsistent standards:
  • Even though people may have personal preferences or styles, documentation, commenting, and testing should be consistent across a code base.
• Non-constructive criticism:
  • When things work they just work and no one talks about it
  • When things break everyone talks about it
  • Given that issues result from negative experiences, it is important for team moral to always try and keep feedback as constructive as possible
• Platform / dependency conflicts:
  • There is no guarantee that all developers will be using the same operating system or development tools.
  • Allowing people the freedom to choose is important but the differences need to be managed via an agreement on how/when/where testing takes place, what acceptance looks like, and the use of a style guide.
  • Having some files with windows style end of line and others with linux style end of line can make it tedious to track changes

Overheads that cannot (should not) be avoided

• Project management will take time, and may not be a skill that you have. Invest time in training.
• Communication and coordination take time but are vital to success
• Commit conflicts will arise even if everything is done right, these need to be discussed and handled properly rather than ignored
• The moral of the team is important to success and will take time and effort to maintain, but it is worth doing so that your project can see the benefits listed above.

Summary

Working in a team can be a hugely beneficial experience for all involved, however there are some negative features that need to be avoided or managed. In the next section we’ll explore how we can create and document project standards that will make working in a team much easier.