Team work sure does bring with it a whole lot of issues. Some good, some bad. Like most things in life, you take the good with the bad and hope the good outweighs the bad :) More specifically, you can’t build any software system of size without more resources; in this case, developers. Culture plays a background role in ensuring a happy and productive work environment. Every company has a culture, every close knit team has a culture. What are some of the team member personalities to look out for and how do they affect the rest of the team? Common problems that can arise in team projects:

The loafing factor:

 One or more team members do less work, realising that someone will pick up the slack. Because they know that this person will, they ‘freeload’ so to speak of off their strong work ethic.

The burn out factor:

Interelated with the loafing effect, consciously or not, one or more team members do more work then they should. Putting more stress, anxiety on not only them, but also the project as a whole. These are now the people doing all the work, if they leave the project stressed, burnt out etc….the project falls apart completely because nobody is there to pickup the pieces.

The specialist factor:

 Large technical gap amongst team members, with one or more containing the technical superiority of the team. This can sometimes alienate weaker (from a technical sense) members or end up at the same place as the burn out factor. If this/these people leave the project, they have just left with all the knowledge.

With varying personalities in a team and potential technical gaps there is certainly a lot of room for error. Without good management and culture, team projects can be quite hard to manage and progress slowly.

Some people just don’t like working in a team environment. That’s not to say team projects are all bad. A well oiled, humming machine (group of developers :) can produce what I can only describe as the synergistic effect. Or ‘The whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. It’s true, one plus one does equal three.

A good culture is one that is conducive to a productive work environment and boosts the morale of the group as a whole. The product or output of the groups effort is greater than what the sum of the individuals efforts would be otherwise.

What sort of culture is conducive to such a thing? From an agile perspective it is one whose culture is open, focuses on face to face communication, assigning responsibility to the team as a whole, not an individual and bringing every ones opinion to the table. Not just taking the word of an expert.Culture is something which is built and sustained over time. It’s the thing in the background keeping everything together.

A good workplace culture, is one you do not notice. It plays its part in the background where it should be, allowing everyone to communicate and work as required. A bad culture becomes evident when things start going wrong. Remember, if people are not in a happy environment where they feel like they contribute something and make a difference, not only will their output to the project suffer (they don’t feel like they contribute anything anyway), but they may even leave. Ensuring the culture stays strong within the team will ensure the team spends it time on development and not on other barriers.