Thinking Out of the Box. Saving Teams. Hanging on to them.
In Open Source development projects one of the factors is to have a clear thinking and a right attitude towards your team. With co-location and time differences it becomes crucial to understand the schematics of how things work between team members and how well and clear the communication is happening. Even when the teams are located with in the same office or the same city, sometimes the communication gaps do arise and then one issue or the other becomes a bottleneck in the progress of the project or getting any clear path.
But in the real world of development, we all are so self-centered and self-conscious human-beings that we stop thinking about people sometimes, and we start thinking about them as objects. It is not trivial to give importance to your team for all the work they are doing rather it should be one of the top priorities. Just imagine the gain here, knowledge sharing, and the drive to learn something new. And nothing else. And what is that you lose? Nothing, and with a helping hand you get an additional brain for your project. Motivation, thus, is an important factor. And plays big sometimes. As burning out brings distant teams, and some zealous team members.
Some teams fear on the perspective of changing the team dynamics. Thinking inside the box on project issues and concerns; keeping it to themselves. Their logic is utterly broken from the point of view where things start to fall apart, and in the end it makes the team members leave silently. This to an extent where in the end it is just the handful of resources are working on it needless to say filling void for the brains who have already left. Holding on to the current team or whatever team you’ve got there is very important.
I am compelled to say this that the only incentive your team is getting out of you is their “learning“, and to progress ahead with what they already know and what is their more to learn and a fun environment. And as long as you keep that in the focus for everyone they’ll stick around for as long as they have interests, and may be till the end of the project. People are easy to find, but good team members who are productive and don’t crap are rare. So hang on to them.
