Three Words For Ideal Team

Three Words to Describe my Perfect Team

Prompt, Knowledgeable, Teachable

Reasoning

- A perfect team member would always be on time.  It shows dedication to the project and it shows that they care about the success of the team.  With big group projects, if one person is consistently late, the whole team loses productivity.  By having a team member show up on time, it shows they are interested in the project, interested in the welfare of the team, and interested in showing up to actually work and push the project forward.

 - A team member should be knowledgeable about programming.  In the past, I have worked with a team member who was not very knowledgeable and not only did it slow the whole team down by making us have to stop and explain everything, but it lowered team morale.  By constantly having to explain what is going on, the team gets frustrated and feels like that member is not pulling their weight.  To be successful, the team must be happy and having team members that are knowledgeable is a great start.

 - A person can know every in and out of every binary in the world, but if they cannot listen to ideas, they are worthless.  A team member should be able to listen to their co-workers, see their point of view, and be open to new suggestions.  As many computer scientists tend to have a big ego, it is important that all team members be teachable so that there are no fights in the group or lack of productivity.  Having a team that can listen, admit when they are wrong, and be happy working with other people's ideas makes the team happier and the project more successful.

The Three Omitted

Three words that I would have loved to include, but had to omit:

 Friendly - Tam members who will be happy taking breaks as a team and all go to eat with each other or just being courteous and funny in team meetings are an important thing to me.  I love it when people are super friendly and nice when you see them.  It makes working with them a much more pleasant experience than it could be.

Focused - Taking breaks and goofing off are a big part of team projects, but when it comes down to it, I want team members that are given a task and they have tunnel vision until its done.  This gives the team a bigger sense of urgency to get the project done and, in my experience, when one person focuses and tries to achieve a lot, so does everyone else.

Free - if a person has no time to ever meet with the entire group, they may as well not be in the group.  I would like a teammate who is always open to meeting after work or before school and, no matter how busy they may be, always find time to make it to meetings.  If a person is never free to meet, the team begins to resent them and internal tension begins.