|
osdir.com mailing list archive |
|
Subject: [xpe2e] Second practice: Whole Team - msg#00006List: programming.extreme-programming.xp-explained2Whole Team Include on the team people with all the skills and perspectives necessary for the project to succeed. This is really nothing more than the old idea of cross-functional teams. The name reflects the purpose of the practice, a sense of wholeness on the team, the ready availability of all the resources necessary to succeed. Where intense interactions are necessary for the health of the project, those interacting should be primarily identified with the team and not their functions. People need a sense of "team": * We belong. * We are in this together. * We support each others' work, growth, and learning. What constitutes a "whole team" is dynamic. If a set of skills or attitudes becomes important, bring a person with these skills on the team. If someone is no longer necessary, he can go elsewhere. For example, if your project requires many changes to a database, you will need a database administrator on the team. When the need for database changes diminishes that person no longer needs to be part of the team, at least for that function. An issue that often arises is ideal team size. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell describes two discontinuities in team size: 12 and 150. Many organizations; military, religious, and business; split teams when they cross these thresholds. Twelve is the number of people who can comfortably interact with each other in a day. With more than 150 people on a team, you can no longer recognize the faces of everyone on your team. Across both of these thresholds it is harder to maintain trust, and trust is necessary for collaboration. For larger projects, finding ways to fracture the problem so it can be solved by a team of teams allows XP to scale up. Some organizations try to have teams with fractional people: "You'll spend 40% of your time working for these customers and 60% work for those customers." In this case, so much time is wasted on task-switching that you can see immediate improvement by grouping the programmers into teams. The team responds to the customers' needs. This frees the programmers from fractured thinking. The customer receives the benefit of the expertise of the whole team as needed. People need acceptance and belonging. Identifying with this program on Mondays and Thursdays and that program on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, without having other programmers to identify with, destroys the sense of "team" and is counterproductive. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpbookdiscussiongroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xpbookdiscussiongroup-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Thread at a glance:
Previous Message by Date: click to view message preview[xpe2e] Re: Whitespace--- "Ken Boucher" <bonsai1966@xxxx> wrote: > One thing I frequently see are invisible walls. This > sounds strange but, it's true. "Oh, so that's what an invisible barrier looks like." -- from Time Bandits (a movie) http://orangecow.org/pythonet/time-bandits.html ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpbookdiscussiongroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xpbookdiscussiongroup-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Next Message by Date: click to view message previewRe: [xpe2e] Second practice: Whole TeamOn Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:55:49 -0700, Kent Beck <kentb-ihVZJaRskl1bRRN4PJnoQQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Some organizations try to have teams with fractional people: "You'll > spend 40% of your time working for these customers and 60% work for > those customers." In this case, so much time is wasted on task-switching > that you can see immediate improvement by grouping the programmers into > teams. The team responds to the customers' needs. This frees the > programmers from fractured thinking. The customer receives the benefit > of the expertise of the whole team as needed. People need acceptance and > belonging. Identifying with this program on Mondays and Thursdays and > that program on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, without having other > programmers to identify with, destroys the sense of "team" and is > counterproductive. > I thought you might be interested in the alternative rationale we use for the same conclusion. In sound bit form, I say "a 60% resource contributes only 40%, but requires 100% coordination effort" (that is, they count as a full person towards the 12-people boundary you describe). ~Johannes ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpbookdiscussiongroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xpbookdiscussiongroup-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Previous Message by Thread: click to view message preview[xpe2e] WhitespaceI had to think about this for a long time to make sure I could say things properly. One thing I frequently see are invisible walls. This sounds strange but, it's true. Our group rearranges tables and computers frequently. This is a regular task that occurs as teams grow and shrink, get created and disband, etc. And it seems that as this occurrs, little no-man's-lands seem to form. Some table with a couple PCs on it, usually the oldest and least updated, evolves between team X and team Y. I used to do some web and print design, so I often think about it with a whitespace metaphor. If anyone here has done print, I think they'll understand what I mean. Each team is like a paragraph, each meeting room a graphic, and the office secretaries are almost like the headline as people enter the room. (Ok, so it's not a good metaphor...) It's almost as if each team needs little whitespace, a little elbow room, in order to feel comfortable. It lets them gather together and talk without disturbing everyone. It helps them feel more together by not making them feel packed in. We're all one big team in one big room, just like this is one big post. But "this" is just a single word, surrounded by spaces, in a single sentance, borded by a period on one end and a capital letter on the other, in a paragraph with empy lines above and below it. otherwiseitgetsalittletoocrowdedinhere bu tfir stwe' llsi ttoge ther ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpbookdiscussiongroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xpbookdiscussiongroup-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Next Message by Thread: click to view message previewRe: [xpe2e] Second practice: Whole TeamOn Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:55:49 -0700, Kent Beck <kentb-ihVZJaRskl1bRRN4PJnoQQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Some organizations try to have teams with fractional people: "You'll > spend 40% of your time working for these customers and 60% work for > those customers." In this case, so much time is wasted on task-switching > that you can see immediate improvement by grouping the programmers into > teams. The team responds to the customers' needs. This frees the > programmers from fractured thinking. The customer receives the benefit > of the expertise of the whole team as needed. People need acceptance and > belonging. Identifying with this program on Mondays and Thursdays and > that program on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, without having other > programmers to identify with, destroys the sense of "team" and is > counterproductive. > I thought you might be interested in the alternative rationale we use for the same conclusion. In sound bit form, I say "a 60% resource contributes only 40%, but requires 100% coordination effort" (that is, they count as a full person towards the 12-people boundary you describe). ~Johannes ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/nhFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xpbookdiscussiongroup/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: xpbookdiscussiongroup-unsubscribe-hHKSG33TihhbjbujkaE4pw@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Loading Comments...
|
|
