Team Work
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What is a team?
Building Effective Teams
Managing yourself
Team obligations
Common Team problems
Risk Management
Meeting techniques
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Team Work
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What is a Team
A team consists of
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At least two people, who
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Are working toward a common
goal/objective/mission, where
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Each person has been assigned specific roles
or functions to perform, and where
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Completion of the mission requires some
form of dependency among the group
members
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Team Work
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Difference from Individual Work
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50% or more Interaction with other
people
30% Individual work
20% Non-productive activities
Jelled team
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Productivity is higher than the sum of
individual.
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Team Composition
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Managed Team
 Appointed manager (total authority and total
responsibility), the manager not necessarily
functional member of the team. This type of team
is typical for large project or product with many
team members.
Chief Programmer Team
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An authority evolves from within the team, not
appointed.
Democratic Team
 No leader - equal responsibility
 Difficult to be effective.
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Team Member Roles
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Project manager
Development manager
Planning manager
Quality manager
Support manager
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Team Formation
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Forming - get to know each other
Storming - Struggle to understand each
others ideas and ways of thinking
Norming - The project patterns and
approaches are agreed upon
Performing - The realization of the
project
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Building Effective Teams
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Team cohesion
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Challenging Goals
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Specific, measurable
Tracked and the progress visibly displayed
Feedback
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The tight knitting of the team members into a unified working
group that physically and emotionally acts as a unit
See the progress toward team’s goal
Distinguish personal performance from the whole team
Common Working Framework
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The path to achieve the goals must be clear
Team members understand their roles and responsibilities and how
to accomplish
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What tasks? When? In what order? By whom?
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The Jelled Team
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Peopleware by Demarco and Lister
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A jelled team is a group of people so
strongly knit that the whole is greater than
the sum of the parts. The production of
such a team is greater than that of the
same people working in unjelled form. Just
as important, the enjoyment that people
derive from their work is greater than what
you’d expect give the nature of the work
itself.
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Managing Yourself
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Being responsible
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Acting Responsibly
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Not giving up
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Back to the failing project story
Stating the facts
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another story
Facing facts
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A Failing project story
A story of a lighthouse
Facts are often debatable
The Risks of Being Responsible
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Managing Yourself
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Striving for Defined Goals
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Focusing on the schedule?
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A story about getting funded, but with wrong product at
the end.
Goals provide focus for the efforts and establish
priorities
What do you want me to do?
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Implicit goals
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ex: quality
Clear goals
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Managing Yourself
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Living by Sound Principles
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Your opinion of yourself
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Your opinion of Others
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Who are you? You are unique with special talents and abilities.
Respect yourself and be objective - Focus on the job itself, not
what other people will think about you
Respect others is critical.
The story of Dick’s case
Your commitment to Excellence
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It requires conviction, perseverance
Resist the temptation to take shortcuts, rush through a design,
nor record a defect, …
Make what you do now something to be proud of
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Teamwork Obligations
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Communication among team members
Making and meeting commitments
Participation in the Team’s Activities
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Team Communication
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Communication is essential to success
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There cannot be a successful team without effective
communication
Listening
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The best communicators are great listeners.
Five levels of listening
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Ignoring
Pretending
Selective
Attentive listening ( focus on the words being said)
Empathic listening ( with the intent to understand)
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Be an active listener, make sure speaker knows that you are listening
“ oh what you mean is … “
“ In other words, you think that …”
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Team Communication
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Talking
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Express your ideas as clearly as possible·
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Ask for feedback from your ideas
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Other team members will not know your ideas unless
they are clearly expressed
What other people understand from your words is not
always what you mean
Negotiating
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Adopt Win-win strategy
When problems arise, if solution is not reached by
discussion, establish the problem and gathering
more information may help
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Making and meeting
commitments
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Responsible commitments
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Team member should make responsible commitments and
strive to meet them
Members must trust one another to do what they say
Commitment is an ethic that must be learned
Making commitments
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Commitment must be freely assumed
The commitment is public
To make responsible commitment, you must prepare
 Define and estimate the work and conclude you can do it.
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Participation in the Team’s
Activities
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Do not caving in too quickly
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Supporting the holdout
Getting Attention
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Ask questions, have them explain to you
Story about airplane crash and the warning of the
co-pilot
Paying attention
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don’t be so self-sufficient
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When you are in trouble, ask for and accept help
When someone is offering help, pay attention
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Common Team Problems
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Poor project management, ineffective leader
Failure to compromise or cooperate
Lack of participation
Procrastination and Lack of Confidence
Poor quality work
Function creep
Ineffective peer evaluation
Under resource estimation
Technical challenging
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Conflict Among Team
Members
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Conflict is indicative of introduction of variety
of ideas
Conflict management is essential to the
success
Different 'approaches' to conflict management
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Negotiating
Compromising
Forcing
Avoiding
Organized confronting
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Risk Management – Plan for
uncertainty and loss
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One might encounter portions that are difficult to
implement
support system failure that causes delays
Product might be so defective that testing takes too
long
Team might loose control over the product or product
changes and spent time on constructing programs
that have already been developed
Your team might not be able to work together
effectively
Individuals might run into personal problems which
reduced productivity
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Setting Goals
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Write down your goals
Specify how to measure these goals
If not obvious explain why these goals
Distribute goals
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Basic Team Goals
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Team goal 1: Produce a quality product
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Team goal 2: Run a productive and well-managed project
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Measure 1.1 Percent of defects found before the first compile: 80%
Measure 1.2 Number of defects found in system testing: 3
Measure 1.3 Requirements functions included at project completion:
100%
Measure 2.1 Error in estimated development hours: > 20%
Measure 2.2 Percent of data recorded and entered in project
notebook: 100%
Team goal 3: Finish on time
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Measure 3.1 Days early or late in completing the development
cycle: < 4
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Team Member Goals
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Goal: Plan and track all my personal work
Goal: Produce quality products
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Measure: defect density found during compile: < 10/kloc
Measure: defect found during unit testing: < 5/kloc
Goal: fully use the team members’ skills and abilities
Goal: Accurately report team status every week
Goal: The team has suitable tools and methods to
support its work
Goal: Perform effectively as the team’s meeting
facilitator
Goal: Resolve all the issues team members bring to
you
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How to avoid procrastination?
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Plan your schedule
Keep track of your schedule
Record actual time
Compare and evaluate for accuracy
Use the time-log forms
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Meeting Techniques
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Scheduling
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As early as possible
Regular times
Make sure everyone can make the meetings
Start meeting when everyone is there
Meeting time and place have to be sufficient
How far into the project should the team meets
Don't spend too much time meeting
Preparation
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Agenda
Distribute agenda to provoke thought
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Meeting Techniques
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Procedures
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Complete (or table) each agenda item before going to next
Start discussions with a presentation of currently known
facts
Comments and criticism should be actively solicited from all
team members (invite some controversy)
Presenting differing idea should be encouraged
Differing ideas should be openly discussed. The differences
must be understood and advantages and disadvantages of
each must be pointed out
Each person must leave the meeting with something specific
to do before the next meeting, that is action item
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