Importance of Teamwork in the Software Industry
Importance of Teamwork in the Software Industry
In the software industry one is expected to work as a part of a group — a team. In a team, the members share resources and collaborate results to deliver a final product. The process of collaboration requires good communication skills, project management skills, and interpersonal skills. I learned these valuable insights while working as part of two different teams at Cohesion, last year. In the two teams, I had different roles — team leader in one and design engineer in the other. Balancing the contrasting responsibilities, objectives, priorities, and work environment offered in the two teams presented many unique challenges.
As the team leader of IntegratorsOnly.com project my biggest challenge was to create a standard development environment for all the developers. Although the developers agreed that some form of controlled environment was required, they were concerned that such a model would stifle creativity and increase development time. Clearly, I wanted to streamline development, but I wanted to do so in a way that was acceptable to all the developers. I arranged a series of team meetings to discuss various development models and encouraged team members to raise questions and offer suggestions. Due to everyone's involvement, the team reached a consensus and adopted a proven development environment.
In the second team I assisted my team lead in database analysis and website design for a client. And my biggest challenge was the differing goals of the two managers I was reporting to. The project manager of IntegratorsOnly.com was most concerned with timely launch of the website whereas the team leader of the HP team was most concerned with client issues and requirements. I helped the team leader of HP team build a stronger team by keeping him apprised of my goals and milestones in the other team. The fact that I was working as a team leader in one team and as a developer in the second team helped me understand both sides of the coin.
In conclusion, the experience gave me some very valuable insights into team building. I realized that communication skills are the most vital tools in building and maintaining teams. Open communication helps in building a team where members are more relaxed and are open to new ideas and techniques. Clear communication helps team members to get the information they need to do their jobs and become more productive. I...