Unlocking Potential

When changing members of a development team, at least these two laws apply:

1. Brook’s law
   “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”
2. Tuckman’s stages of group development
   “Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing”

Furthermore, common traps are waiting like

• work queuing up for specialized teams (e.g. a database team),
• shifting team members around, triggering the Tuckman stages from the beginning,
• multitasking on several projects drastically reduces productivity,
• detailed models for team members from different teams assigned to the same project usually fall short,
• the required knowledge and skills may not be available when required and
• failing teams being staffed with team members from successful teams usually do not lead to improvement.

Guide the Development Team through the Tuckman stages and keep it stable afterwards. Feature Teams have the best chance to be productive without the need for changes in their composition. When a new task has to be done by the Development Teams and skills or knowledge are missing, the issue can be fixed without changing the team. Team members do not need to be shuffled from crisis to crisis, but can improve the velocity of the team as the members know each other and can improve productivity step by step.