All software development team project managers hope for a dream team of successful developers working to assist the company to achieve its objectives. Unfortunately, this type of team is very rare in all professions, including in the area of ​​software development. I am thinking particularly of enterprise applications or software companies where teams of developers are working simultaneously on the same code base of the same product.

The reason probably lies in the way we generally go about increasing developer productivity. It is probably too focused on improving the hard skills of the individuals (e.g. sending them on technical training and evaluating them individually on these points) and not their soft skills which without doubt positively and significantly impact on the effectiveness of the whole team. We should also consider “groupal” improvements: organizing the team so that it can naturally grow and reach a much desired level of maturity.  Raising awareness of the groupal phenomena is an example that I will specifically address in a future article.

I propose here a brief introduction to the concept of team dynamics that I will discuss more thoroughly and specifically in future posts. To begin with, I offer a definition from “high performance teams” research in group dynamics and organizational psychology. This approach is put forward by Katzenbach & Smith (1993) in their book “The Wisdom of Teams” and seems to me to be a particularly interesting way to begin addressing this issue. Both authors propose, as a first step, to clarify the difference between a single group of individuals and a team:

“A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for they hold themselves mutually accountable.”

We will see how this breaks down operationally. According to Katzenbach & Smith, the characteristics that differentiate between a normal team and a successful team are:

1. A limited number of members

As the number increases, it is less easy to maintain high efficiency. As suggested by the authors in their work, it is clear that problems of communication grow along with the size of the team.

2. They are composed of people with complementary skills

We immediately think of the different technical skills, but it goes further than that. The authors propose three categories of skills:

• Technical & functional expertise
• Problem-solving and decision-making skills
• Interpersonal skills

In software development, we tend to wrongly focus on the first category (hard skills) while neglecting others. One of the best ways to increase the efficiency of an entire team is to invest in developing their soft skills. This should also allow them to see things from a “groupal” perspective as opposed to the “individual” view which is overwhelmingly the case. In addition it should be noted that the multi-complementary members of a team involves active support – and that even within the same skills category. Thus, the developer of the backend will fully rely on the expertise of the DBA when needed and vice versa. All promotion of individualism, for example by individual evaluations (explicit or implicit), would make a good team ineffective.

3. Committed to a common purpose and performance goals

This is a common objective defined in agreement with the team. The goals should never be imposed by any individual (eg the team leader). The performance of the team to achieve the goals must be measurable. The measurement method is paramount and should in no case enter into conflict with the above principles, for example by measuring the team members individually and not collectively.

4. Committed to a common approach

This approach should also be clearly defined. It seems to be that the first requirement is the establishment of coding guidelines that must be enforced by a continuous integration server and / or frequent code reviews. The latter, to be effective, must not be made by the same people but by the team in rotation. This allows different members of the team to share learning and leads to a mutually enriched team. The criteria should be re-discussed and re-evaluated in a retrospective sprint (if you work in an iterative model as Scrum). The team should also have overall responsibility for development tools it uses. If they have a strategic interest in the company, its main users should be involved in one way or another in the discussions. Which brings us to the last point.

5. Mutual accountability

This element seems to me particularly important to ensure good cohesion in the team. If you want to get to an optimum efficiency level, you must delegate some control over the project to the team (eg the choice of tools as mentioned above). The worst situation would be to make the team fully responsible for the result but taking away any means of control over their performance. This would create very severe stress that would be counterproductive for the entire organization.

As you may have noticed, there is plenty of room for discussion. And this is just based on the findings from a single study. There are hundreds of other studies that will allow me to return to these questions of team dynamics (aka group dynamics) very frequently in the future.  I think that this is a fundamental element in the field of software development. The specifics of this sector will allow us to approach things differently. I am thinking especially of the psychological profile of the developer in general (myth or reality), but also the technical means available to create an optimal working environment to meet the criteria for achieving optimum performance. For example the use of the continuous integration server but also the various meetings organized within the framework of a method of iterative development.

If you are interested in the subject, do not hesitate to share your experiences in a comment or by contacting me directly.