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Questions tagged [team]

It refers to the group of people (software developers, testers, project managers, product owners, etc.) who are working on the same project or company. However, usually it refers to a team of software developers.

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351 votes
20 answers
80k views

How should I behave as a developer in a project that's headed for failure?

I am a developer in a 5-member team and I believe our project is headed for disaster. I'll describe why in a moment, but my question is: how should I behave? The deadline is in 1.5 months, and I ...
235 votes
25 answers
50k views

How do I prevent Scrum from turning great developers into average developers?

I found this also happened in my team although he may have exaggerated the situation a little bit. Scrum is a way to take a below average or poor developer and turn them into an average developer. It'...
Qiulang 邱朗's user avatar
183 votes
23 answers
19k views

How can I deal with a team member who dislikes making comments in code?

One of my team members consistently avoids making comments in his code. His code is not self-documenting, and other programmers have a difficult time understanding his code. I have asked him ...
95 votes
8 answers
10k views

Adding a new developer just before deadline is horrible. But what is not?

Imagine a project is assigned to a team, deadline is estimated as 8 months. After 6 months it becomes apparent the project will most certainly not be complete on time(e.g a law changes or a hidden ...
Vorac's user avatar
  • 7,139
65 votes
8 answers
13k views

How do I deal with a difficult programmmer joining an open source project?

I have an open source script for a specific site (I'm trying not to call anything by name here) that I and a few other developers recently moved to GitHub. We've gotten several new developers since we ...
Nathan2055's user avatar
49 votes
7 answers
6k views

Programming with a group of people I've never met

I've been assigned a group project from my AP computer science class, and I am required to work with three other people. I've never talked to them before, I have no idea their skill level, and all I ...
Gabriel's user avatar
  • 635
48 votes
13 answers
4k views

Is individual code ownership important? [closed]

I'm in the midst of an argument with some coworkers over whether team ownership of the entire codebase is better than individual ownership of components of it. I'm a huge proponent of assigning every ...
Jim Puls's user avatar
  • 707
44 votes
7 answers
5k views

How do you keep track of what classes and functions your team has written?

When working on code, I face many of the same challenges that my teammates do, and I have written some helpful functions and classes, and so have they. If there is good communication, I'll hear about ...
changokun's user avatar
  • 501
42 votes
8 answers
3k views

What are the main things a programmer expects from the senior programmer?

Recently I read the following 5 Types Of Bosses and How To Deal With Them , which describes the attires of the worst boss. I've just started leading a small team of software developers. I would like ...
Avatar's user avatar
  • 1,045
41 votes
12 answers
4k views

How do I convince my employer to hire an additional developer without selling myself short? [closed]

I'm the only developer at a small company. I've slowly moved into development here; until ~4 months ago 50-75% of my time was spent on operations. Now, 50-75% of my time is spent on development, with ...
John Straka's user avatar
  • 2,323
40 votes
8 answers
6k views

Is rotating developers on a project a good or bad idea?

I'm working on a small team that will begin working on a large new project with another small team. The other team is currently working on a legacy system that they have been working on for years. ...
Christian P's user avatar
  • 1,952
35 votes
4 answers
35k views

Is it common to separate back-end and front-end into two positions on web development projects?

At a web startup, is it more common to have an engineer working the front-end AND back-end of the feature (basically in charge of the whole feature)? Or have engineers separated between the back-end ...
lamp_scaler's user avatar
33 votes
10 answers
4k views

Scrum: how to integrate work done by an overachieving developer out of band?

We have a "typical" SCRUM team and we commit to work for a sprint, and also maintain a backlog. Recently we have run into a problem of trying to integrate/handle the work of an overachieving developer ...
Matt's user avatar
  • 441
31 votes
17 answers
7k views

Is rotating the lead developer a good or bad idea?

I work on a team that has been flat organizationally since it's creation several months ago. My manager is non-technical and this means that our whole team is responsible for decision-making. My ...
29 votes
16 answers
6k views

Does a team of developers need a manager?

Background: I'm currently part of a team of four: 1 manager, 1 senior developer and 2 developers. We do a range of bespoke in-house systems / projects (e.g. 6-8 weeks) for an organisation of around ...
28 votes
19 answers
5k views

What hat should a programmer not wear? [closed]

In my experience, software developers tend to wear multiple hats and fill multiple roles with different responsibilities. From not only coding, but sometimes also writing SQL, designing the user-...
spong's user avatar
  • 9,451
28 votes
8 answers
9k views

What are the negatives of Development Managers as Scrum Masters?

It is commonly agreed that team managers should not be scrum masters, but I am struggling to see why. For context, I am an Application Development Manager with 4 devs in a Scrum Team. I come from a ...
SpoonerNZ's user avatar
  • 862
27 votes
15 answers
2k views

How do I convince my team to use smaller classes/methods?

Disclaimer: I'm a newcomer (this is my third day of work), and most of my teammates are more experienced than me. When I look at our code, I see some code smells and bad engineering practices, like ...
Deltax76's user avatar
  • 1,041
27 votes
3 answers
7k views

What is the ideal mix of senior to junior developers on a team?

On any team, you are going to have the need for more grizzled and grey developers and some young pups. Some reasons include: Money. There are often tasks that don't require the same level of ...
Paddyslacker's user avatar
  • 11.1k
25 votes
6 answers
4k views

What actions to take when people leave the team? [duplicate]

Recently one of our key engineers resigned. This engineer has co-authored a major component of our application. We are not hitting Truck number yet though, but we're getting close :) Before the guy ...
finrod's user avatar
  • 701
25 votes
9 answers
25k views

How to handle conflicts between developers in your team? [closed]

This is happening in every team. For some reasons, conflicts arise in the team and they affect the overall motivation and productivity. What is your recommended approach to solve that common problem?...
user avatar
25 votes
9 answers
2k views

Advice for solo programmer whose team will expand in the near future [closed]

For 4 years now, I've been the solo developer for a small company. We have a handful of well establish products in a niche industry. We will be hiring 1-2 developers soon, and that will likely change ...
bufferz's user avatar
  • 369
24 votes
7 answers
5k views

Rule of thumb for cost vs. savings for code re-use [duplicate]

Is it a good rule of thumb to always write code for the intent of re-using it somewhere down the road? Or, depending on the size of the component you are writing, is it better practice to design it ...
Tyler's user avatar
  • 789
24 votes
4 answers
45k views

How to structure a development team

I am the manager of a team of 11 software developers who look after my company's web sites / web applications, running up to 4 concurrent projects plus day-to-day support at any time. Within the 11 ...
Nick's user avatar
  • 1,175
24 votes
10 answers
2k views

Inspiring a co-worker to adopt better coding practices?

In the Handling my antiquated coworker question, various people discussed strategies for dealing with coworkers who are unwilling to integrate their workflow with the team's. I'd like, if possible, to ...
Aaronaught's user avatar
  • 44.4k
23 votes
4 answers
12k views

How to deal with team members writing bad code [duplicate]

Our team consits of junior and senior developers. Problem I am facing is with the code written by seniors. They are not following MINIMUM coding standards. I am also still learning but I wouldn't ...
Sunny's user avatar
  • 947
23 votes
3 answers
504 views

At what stage of an Open Source project should you invite contributions from the community? [closed]

I've been wondering about getting contributions to a new open source product my team will be developing. There's encouragement for us to get as much support from the wider community as we're able, ...
Armand's user avatar
  • 6,528
22 votes
2 answers
5k views

Is feature ownership a good practice?

Recently in my company it has been suggested that one developer should focus (and only one) in one feature. That would mean something like setting the developer aside of the normal team routine, ...
mdelolmo's user avatar
  • 331
22 votes
8 answers
631 views

What do I do when my team leader is breaking my database schema with a release coming up?

My team leader has this terrible habit of mucking with the database schema, and making changes that would cause severe breakage on the code base (without really consulting me on how the changes would ...
leppie's user avatar
  • 716
22 votes
5 answers
15k views

In Scrum, why shouldn't the Product Owner and ScrumMaster roles be combined?

In the more traditional projects that I've worked on, the project manager (and, on larger projects, there might be associate/deputy/assistant project managers should one person be unavailable) is the ...
Thomas Owens's user avatar
  • 83.7k
21 votes
3 answers
2k views

Advice/guidelines for managing a distributed development team [duplicate]

What are some strategies, methodologies and best-practices for managing a distributed team? What can be done to encourage and enforce communication between the various team members? Is it possible ...
Ami's user avatar
  • 2,055
20 votes
7 answers
996 views

What can you do about the quality of existing integration and unit tests while being the new guy in a team ?

A recurring theme that I came across in my career is being the new developer to arrive in a team, and quickly having an inherent distrust of the existing unit and integration test suites. During the ...
maple_shaft's user avatar
  • 26.5k
20 votes
6 answers
779 views

Headaches using distributed version control for traditional teams?

Though I use and like DVCS for my personal projects, and can totally see how it makes managing contributions to your project from others easier (e.g. your typical Github scenario), it seems like for a ...
J Cooper's user avatar
  • 482
20 votes
7 answers
23k views

How to run developer team meetings?

Our team of 10 developers meet weekly. The meetings are rather boring and not particularly useful. What format/agenda do you utilize to have good meetings? We meet weekly in the conference room with ...
Marcus Leon's user avatar
20 votes
9 answers
7k views

How important are code formatting guidelines? [closed]

Coding standards are common in any software development organization, but how important are they to follow? I can understand the need for some consistency, but when dealing with simple things like ...
derekerdmann's user avatar
19 votes
8 answers
10k views

Strategy/algorithm to divide fair teams based on history

We are a group of people playing floorball together on a regular basis. Every session starts with the daunting task of dividing teams... So what would be better than an application to pick teams ...
Vegar's user avatar
  • 387
18 votes
5 answers
27k views

What is a "cross-functional team" actually? [closed]

The general meaning of "cross-functional team" is a team which combines specialists in different fields that are required to reach the goal. But it looks like in Agile cross-functionality means not ...
SiberianGuy's user avatar
  • 4,803
18 votes
7 answers
2k views

How to become a good team player? [closed]

I've been programming (obsessively) since I was 12. I am fairly knowledgeable across the spectrum of languages out there, from assembly, to C++, to Javascript, to Haskell, Lisp, and Qi. But all of ...
Nick's user avatar
  • 297
17 votes
9 answers
722 views

Should programmers help testers in designing tests?

How much should programmers help testers in designing tests? I don't think they should help at all. My worry is that if they help testers in designing tests for their own code, they'll 'infect' ...
Paul Reiners's user avatar
16 votes
8 answers
4k views

Too many seniors in one team? [closed]

Can having too many senior programmers in one team turn out to be a bad thing? Having like say, 4-5 senior programmers in a team of 6-7 people. What is the optimal number/ratio in these kind of ...
TehBoyan's user avatar
  • 1,295
16 votes
10 answers
3k views

Disagreement with project lead on coding standards [closed]

So I'm working on a new project along with my project lead for the past 1 year. Initially we had our own sub-projects that resided in separate git repos, I had little interaction with his code, so ...
George Kagan's user avatar
16 votes
5 answers
654 views

Are my team's processes out of control?

I'm a software dev team leader (I recently took control of a new team), and ultimately responsible for maintaining high productivity, good quality and organized priorities. I have 6 senior developers ...
Daniel Minnaar's user avatar
14 votes
6 answers
1k views

Should a developer be allowed to use VSS if he prefers it?

I introduced Mercurial to my department. I love it, but it is my first version control experience. I am using it with NetBeans PHP for web development. Another developer who works on internal company ...
JD Isaacks's user avatar
  • 8,926
14 votes
10 answers
3k views

Skeptic in a Scrum Team

My company has recently switched to an Agile way of working and as a part of it we've started using SCRUM. While I'm very comfortable with it and feel that this way is superior to a traditional one, ...
Sorantis's user avatar
  • 2,730
14 votes
6 answers
5k views

How does SCRUM manage an enviroment where team members are shared?

Well, the questions said itself. In my workplace those cases happen, but also, many Agile books promote working in the same workplace and being concentrated in the current project to become faster in ...
Xanathos's user avatar
  • 243
13 votes
4 answers
1k views

How should code "Goal Tending" be handled by a Development Manager?

First allow me to coin a term: code goal-tending: Checking out code in the morning, then silently reviewing all of the changes made by the other developers the previous day file by file, (...
Kevin McCormick's user avatar
13 votes
5 answers
2k views

What to do as a Dev when for years their team has lacked product innovation, not used project mgmt methodologies, and kept bad Software Dev practices? [closed]

I am interested in knowing how to deal with a current software development process that has not been changed for years and will eventually lead to product and team failure. Yes, probably the easier ...
kami's user avatar
  • 157
13 votes
6 answers
5k views

What is the role of QA in a BDD project?

If running a project using BDD with 100% coverage of user stories with automated acceptance tests, what would be the role of a tester / quality assurance person? I guess I am imagining that ...
Armand's user avatar
  • 6,528
13 votes
14 answers
2k views

How to get new team members up to date with the project? [closed]

We are about to hire 1-2 new engineers for the software team (consisting of 3 developers, 1 tester). What are the steps to integrate them into the team? My ideas are : read documentation (coding ...
BЈовић's user avatar
  • 14.1k
13 votes
4 answers
1k views

Does every member of an agile team need to be a software developer?

We recently started using agile methodologies at my company. Because I am quite new to agile, I wonder if our way of implementing it is correct according to the basic principles of agile. Previously, ...
tsardine's user avatar
  • 153

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