Codermetrics

Chapter 8. Building Software Teams

Coaches can teach players only so much, but they can also learn a lot from veteran players. People look at our team and say we’re old, but we’re old for a reason. Those guys serve a purpose in our organization. They are there to guide our young players.

—Ken Holland, general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, 1997–present

Aside from people who only like to work alone, everyone wants to be part of a winning team. While there are many definitions of “winning,” you would probably agree that for software teams the definition includes producing great software and enjoying the process. But how do you get that? Hiring the smartest and most skilled people possible is always a good starting point, but does that alone produce a winning team?

This chapter presents ideas about how codermetrics can be used to help you make personnel additions and adjustments to build better software teams, and to achieve greater success according to your defined goals. This can apply to new or existing teams. The goal is to create a planned approach to personnel decisions and team building, using metrics to inform and support the process. There are many well-known and proven ideas that work for professional sports teams and that are analogous to the needs of software development teams, so I will draw on those throughout the chapter.

As with all parts of this book, the focus here is on coders. Clearly, there are other people and roles on software development teams, like testers and ...