{"id":20644,"date":"2012-04-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/global2020prd.wpengine.com\/insights\/to-team-or-not-to-team\/"},"modified":"2020-03-21T08:24:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T08:24:49","slug":"to-team-or-not-to-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/insights\/to-team-or-not-to-team\/","title":{"rendered":"To team or not to team?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><em>Last week, CEO Kevan Hall was invited to participate in a round table on the subject of \u2018What makes a successful software development team?\u2019 held by <a title=\"SIG (Software Improvement Group)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sig.eu\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">SIG (Software Improvement Group) <\/a>in London. In the first of a series of blogs as a result of that event, we look at team work in the context of developers.<\/em><\/h3>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4337\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4337\" style=\"width: 369px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4337   \" title=\"Haye and Hall\" alt=\"Andrew de la Haye and Kevan Hall\" src=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/1203-march-images-057.jpg\" width=\"369\" height=\"276\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4337\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Andrew de la Haye, RIPE NCC, and Kevan Hall, Global Integration debate on teams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Andrew de la Haye is the CIO of <a title=\"RIPE NCC\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ripe.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RIPE NCC<\/a>, the European Internet administrator. He manages a large development team, whose software has been empirically assessed by SIG as having \u2018five star software\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>We examined the structure of his team and the way that he creates \u2013 and reduces \u2013 teams. Kevan Hall (Global Integration) quickly recognised that de la Haye has unconsciously fulfilled the theory initially expounded by Robin Dunbar on the size of true, <a title=\"Teamwork\" href=\"https:\/\/www.global-integration.com\/training-for-virtual-teams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">successful teams<\/a>. He has his developers working in small groups of around six people, but responsible to their wider community.<\/p>\n<p>This helps hugely in terms of collaboration and co-operation, and means that the software engineers on the team act as a self-regulator \u2013 they can see each others\u2019 code, care about the quality of code that\u2019s been written and work together where necessary. There\u2019s a clear cost imperative in having high quality software in RIPE NCCs case \u2013 poor quality will mean changes later.<\/p>\n<p>De la Haye has a \u00a0visible \u2018score board\u2019 which shows each teams results, which serves to make them answerable to the wider RIPE developer community and helps keep them keen and competitive. He also has mechanisms in place, outside of simple financial arrangements, for helping reward staff and keep them motivated.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The \u2018scrum\u2019 methodology (agile development) that they use means that projects are broken into sections (each written on a post it note), and people decide for themselves who wants to work on what.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s clear that pride is a better motivator than pressure for the team \u2013 they have a strong emphasis on quality. Sure, there are deadlines, but the team has become adept at identifying where there will be complexity and working out solutions.<\/p>\n<p>This empowerment feeds into a level of contentment amongst the team that keeps them motivated.<\/p>\n<p>Consequently de la Haye can only recall one incident where someone was consistently underperforming, resolved by training.<\/p>\n<p>There are, of course, wider factors at play. De la Haye recognises that he couldn\u2019t micro-manage, even if he wanted to, because he\u2019s not a developer himself. The company\u2019s COO is also responsible for technology, so there are no budget conflicts. And although there are budget constraints, there is no profit imperative. RIPE NCC is a not for profit organization.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, however, the great quality software that has emerged from RIPE NCC seems to be down to some great management principles, including a combination of good organization, controlled communication, rightsizing teams, empowerment and a culture of valuing quality.<\/p>\n<p><em>Of course, not everyone agreed with everything that was said at the round table. We\u2019ll be blogging some of the other findings over the coming days.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>We\u2019d love to hear your stories of what makes a great team \u2018tick\u2019,<\/strong> whether in a software development context or from another industry. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment boxes below or by emailing us.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re on Twitter, and want to share your ideas there, the hashtag for the event was #greatteams. We\u2019re on <a title=\"Global Integration on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/Twitter.com\/GlobalInteg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@globalinteg<\/a>, and SIG is on <a title=\"SIG on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sig_eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@sig_eu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, CEO Kevan Hall was invited to participate in a round table on the subject of \u2018What makes a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-20644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","type-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.6 (Yoast SEO v27.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>To team or not to team? 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