What Do Your Team Members Bring to the Table?
Posted at 12:14 PM on Tuesday, July 29, 2008
My friend and project management expert Jim Brosseau just published his latest issue of the Clarrus Compendium, and he talks about an important distinction in team performance. Here is how it begins . . . In many shops, I have seen situations where one person (or perhaps a few, but it is always a minority) appears to be getting in the way, and the perception is that they need to be sent on their way for the good of the team. While this actually is true in some cases, I think that more often than not it is more a case of failing to appreciate what others bring to the table.
The measurement of personal productivity is a powerful tool, but can be wielded in dysfunctional ways. It is possible to measure the amount of new code that a developer produces over a period of time, or the number of defects found by a tester, and these are great measures for the individual to use as a basis for estimates of future work. In the context of the team, though, there is a strong tendency to start comparisons. Alice produces more code than Bob, so is Alice better? Bob finds more defects than Cindy, so is Bob better? By this sort of measure of productivity, most executives would be seen as highly unproductive (unless of course we measured the amount of time they spent facing their Blackberries or iPhones). We need to go well beyond the surface.Read the rest here. Than think about how you evaluate those you work with, and decide if you have your measurements calibrated correctly. If all of this makes you think, you might want to read this past post of mine too.
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