Quality of the Team vs a Specific Process

Question

Jeff Atwood's recent blog about bad apples reminded me about something I've given a lot of though about over my career. What is more important, the quality of the members of the team or the quality of the process they follow.

I've come to the conclusion that the quality of the members of the team is far more important than the process they follow. I'm a huge fan of process. There needs to be rules that are followed and measurements tracked and analyzed, but the nature of those rules and measures can be very different when the team is made up of highly skilled and productive members. The question is what are your experiences with a highly effective team vs a highly effective process?

Answer 1

Simply put a good team can use a bad process. They will be inefficient, but they can make it work.

Answer 2

I would suggest that given a highly effective team, there will eventually be a highly effective process. If there is a "bad" process in place, but a decent team is put in place that has the power to manage/improve/control that process, then they will improve the process until it fits with their effectiveness.

Even given the best processes, an ineffective team will still be an ineffective team no matter how the process is implemented/controlled, unless the ineffective members of the team, the "bad apples" as Jeff puts it, are gotten rid of. I suppose a good process to have is a way to get rid of these bad apples.

Initially, it's the people that make the processes, and if the processes are made well, they will keep the people in line.

Answer 3

People are a first-order determinant of project success. Process comes next, tools come last.

However, experience suggests that the most effective people are those who have excellent process (or "transverse") knowledge, over domain ("specific") knowledge.

Specifically, knowledge of how to collaborate (ability to ask for help when needed, for instance), knowledge of how to communicate (what makes a meeting effective, writing well, using email wisely), and knowledge of how to organize one's work (dividing work into tasks, planning the tasks, executing the plan, tracking divergence from plan).

So, always aim for "good people" but be aware of ambiguities in the very phrase "good people".