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Working alone is better than working as a team.
3 points by nick5679 on Oct 12, 2010 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments
Hi all,

I have been working on a project as a part of team for sometime now. We are not getting anywhere. And we are not able to pinpoint one person or one thing that is not working.

So I look forward to hearing from you why teamwork seldom works.

Thanks.




Strange conclusion: teamwork doesn't work because your team doesn't work?

Did you even consider the second option: your team sucks.

Sorry to state that in such a plain way, but I've seen many teams doing great work. Matter of organisation and responsibility.


I disagree with the statement. However, you need a good team to work well as a team, and when you're at the stage of trying to pinpoint faults, the team already failed.

That doesn't mean that all teams suck, though. The one I work with certainly doesn't, and I'm more productive as part of this team than I ever was alone.


I am trying to pin faults on anybody. I am trying to introspect why the team is not working. I have been part of many teams both successful ones and ones like this. I feel I have learnt more, finished projects faster, felt more content with the quality of output, and acknowledged for going the extra mile on projects that I have worked alone and then in a team environment.

In the team environment, the quality of output is always compromised. I always end up feeling I could have done more to fix the project. And I am dissatisfied and pretty pissed at lack of accountability and aloofness of the team.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone but this is how I feel every working hour I work in a team.


That only means that even if you were in successful teams, they weren't good teams.


The communication overhead for a team of x developers is on the order of x!.

Or something like that.

edit: (x-1)!

edit 2: of course there are other factors, that's just one piece of it.




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