On Team Speed and Work Paces

Projects often comprise of team members and managers who work differently. Diversity in work patterns of team sometimes brings out best and often the worst. For a car to move smoothly all four wheels have to rotate at the same speed. Same might not be fully applicable to software projects, but project teams have to work in fine synchrony to come out with expected results. This is what Jeff on hist post "Life at 33 RPM"  at Thinking Faster calls RPM or workpace.

" Every person has their natural "speed".  Some people are perfectionists and like to work slowly and carefully.  Some people just work slowly, period.  Some people work quickly and are on to the next thing.  It's rare to find a group of people or a team that has the same "RPM" mentality across the team.  This usually becomes a source of conflict, as the speedier ones look at the slower ones as dragging the team down, and the slower ones usually have an argument about completeness of the work and the quality of the work.

Managing others is completely about understanding how they view themselves, their work and their relationship with you.  Constantly hounding someone to work to your preferred RPM will only cause stress.  It will cause impatience to those who prefer to work more quickly, and will cause stress with those who prefer to work more slowly.  What you'll want to do is establish an expectation with each person and manage them accordingly.

Also, I think it's reasonable to set a "team speed".  This sets a single expectation for the quality and delivery times that the team as a whole needs to meet."

In addition to what Jeff says above, it is also very important for a manager to align himself to the “team speed”. Often if a manager thinks/moves fast, even the reasonably fast team will struggle to match up to a manager’s speed and the reverse may also be true. Hence, it is essential for team and manager to make progress at an agreed “team speed”. It even makes sense to involve customer (knowing their expectations) in deciding the team speed.

As Jeff rightly says, its critical for a manager to establish a common “team speed” and dictate the work paces.

Update 31 May, 2006 : On a lighter note, the quote I read on Michael Wade's Execupundit.com goes well with something I wrote above.

"Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.”

– George Carlin