Notes to a Software Team Leader: Growing Self Organizing Teams

by Roy Osherove

There are no Experts. There is only us.

A good leader will challenge the team and people around them to solve their own problems instead of solving everyone’s problem for them.

Back then, my idea of what a team leader should do was: A team leader should provide to their team everything the team needs and then get out of their way. Boy, did I think I was stellar!

If you can leave work for a few days without being afraid to turn off your cell phone and laptop. If you can do that, come back, and things are going well, your team is in the quite unique position of solving their own problems without needing you to help them through.

This is how our team feels at Episerver and it’s amazing.

there is always the noted “no downers” rule, in which you don’t allow immature behavior within the team.

No piece of code gets checked in to source control without a code review. Yes, even if it’s one line of code. Even if it’s not code, just an XML file, I still review it.

*we review it.