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Do Programmers Work in Teams? (Let’s find out)

by | Jun 29, 2022 | programming | 0 comments

Programmers working in teams

Most Programmers prefer working alone in personalized work stations, office spaces and cafes but for large projects, programmers are required to work in teams.

Regardless of how much a programmer can build in isolation, good team work and collaborative effort is required to build and deploy a MVP.

Programmers Teamwork Dilemma

I often hear programmers say:

I can do it faster on my own or working with a team slow me down.

I get it. I’ve worked with different teams in the past.

I wasn’t really into it early in my career because I just want to be left alone to do my job.

Back then I see standup meetings as a waste of time.

Everyone take turns to give work updates and I felt I’d be better off focusing on my task.

Also didn’t like the idea of project managers buzzing my phone with messages, seems like a scary nightmare as I only wish to complete my task and give one-time complete feedback.

It can really be tough to let others take some control especially if you’re used to a more independent workflow.

But..

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that an effective team is much better than individual prowess and teamwork is absolutely necessary for real-world development.

You might be a senior developer, well vast and skilled, can build and deploy programs with minimal external help but if you can’t collaborate with your team, the team progress will be significantly low as your teammates’ shortcomings will rub off on everyone.

Come to think of it:

“It does no good to be the all-star MVP on the lowest-ranked football team in the league. Without collaborative effort, your team will still end up in the relegation zone.”

A good team player carries everyone along, provides help to the team when necessary and makes sure the objective of the team is met.

There are various scenarios where programming teamwork is required, for instance:

  • The project is simply too large for one developer to reasonably do on their own.
  •  The project covers a lot of different specific technologies and any one developer or programmer isn’t likely to be an expert in all of them.
  • The project has a deadline so some parts need to be worked on simultaneously.

All these scenarios are a couple of reasons why companies follow a team approach when dealing with any form of software development.

How is a software development team structured?

Solo programmers tend to wonder how programming teams are structured.
For professional relevance, we do refer to such teams as software development teams.

Different teams might have different team structures depending on:

  • The size of the project
  • The nature of the company
  • The applied methodology

A good software development team is one that has the necessary roles for the project at hand.

The key structure of any software development team regardless of the project nature or methodology often comprises:

Project Manager (PM)

This person is in charge of planning and accountable for the successful execution of the project.

PMs oversee all the processes, delegate the tasks among other team members, and ensure that everyone stays on track.

Business Analyst (BA)

The Business analyst is the person in charge of analyzing the client’s business needs to inform their development.

They are also responsible for formulating goals, analyzing and documenting the core processes and systems, and ensuring the alignment of the business model and technology.

Programmers working in different teams

UI/UX Designer

The UI designer is responsible for designing the user interface, which is everything that the users see and interact with when using the software.

The UX designer is in charge of creating a satisfactory experience for the user by paying attention to everything from the interface to the performance.

In recent times we have a single individual performing both functions.

Developers (Front-end/ Back-end)

The developers/programmers perform the actual coding of the software.

The frontend developers build all the application interface elements that a user interacts with while the backend developers work on the server-side of a website.

Quality Assurance Engineer (QA)

The QA polishes the end products, responsible for testing the product to make sure it not only functions properly but also meets the client’s requirements and is in line with quality standards.

5 Programming Tips for working on a software development team

If you are new to this, it might be somewhat overwhelming but don’t panic, see it as a growth phase grooming you into a more seasoned programmer.

Here are some elite tips that will keep you ahead of the game.

1. Make your code easy to understand and use a descriptive name

2. Follow the team’s guidelines

3. Effective communication and work documentation

4. Maintain momentum and limit work-in-progress

5. Keep a team-oriented mind.

1. Make your code easy to understand and use a descriptive name

Have you ever come across a piece of code that’s just impossible to comprehend?
I guess you don’t want to be that person whose shitty code throws the whole team off balance.
Write clean code following the DRY technique ( Do not repeat yourself).

In a modern development era like ours with less file size restrictions and more IDE autocomplete features there’s never a reason to use shortened or abbreviated names.

Add comments when necessary but don’t overdo it.

Never use confusing names leaving it up to future developers to guess.

2. Follow your team’s guidelines

A lot of companies and open-source projects have style guides that provide conventions for function naming, code formatting, comment styles and much more.

Following conventions makes your work easier to parse.

If your team doesn’t have a style guide you should always try to match the existing code as much as possible.

If your team’s project directory is a mess consider having a talk with everyone about how to best sort it out.

The best way to make your work understood is to simply name your files, functions and variables properly.

3. Effective Communication and Work Documentation

It’s important you let the team know what you are working on at every point in time as this helps reduce code duplication.

Regardless of the task project methodology be it Agile or Waterfall, work documentation is needed to avoid work overlap among teammates.

Let the team know when you start and when you finish a task.

You can use sticky notes in the office, send a group message, hop on stand-ups or use your company collaboration tool.

Your choice but always make sure that everyone knows what you’re working on.

Codebase documentation is also helpful, as a well-documented codebase keeps all the developers on the same page.

This makes it easier to read and work on legacy code making it possible for developers to collaborate without going through the original author to help track and resolve issues.

Programmers Tips for Teamwork

4. Maintain Momentum and Limit Work-in-Progress

You might be assigned a specific task or new tasks on weekly basis.

Regardless of your work scheduling approach, try to maintain momentum by focusing on the right task at the right time.

It’s important to keep a prioritized backlog which is a list of all the upcoming tasks ordered by accordingly the most integral to the project.

Teamwork is most effective when everyone can work together on the project as a whole.

Try to limit work-in-progress by getting tasks completed.

5. Keep a team-oriented mentality

It’s in your own best interest to keep a team-oriented mentality.

Everyone suffers when the team’s product ships with a critical bug or ends up months behind schedule.

When working collaboratively toward a finished project, it’s likely that you’ll end up with conflicting ideas about creative directions or the validity of a particular solution.

This is why software development teams have team leaders to direct the workflow.

if your team doesn’t have a leader, I’d recommend that you establish one developer as the lead developer.

Having someone to arbitrate even minor conflicts will save a ton of time in the long run.

How Do Multiple Programmers Work Together?

We have earlier discussed the different structures of a software development team and we saw how developers work with other personnel in the team.

But we can have multiple programmers working together on one project by using:

  1. Version Control System
  2. Module approach
  3. Pair Programming
  4. Smaller Tasks Assignment
  5. Code Collaboration Tools

Version Control System

Version control, also known as source control, is the practice of tracking and managing changes to software code.

It keeps track of every modification to the code in a special kind of database. If a mistake is made, developers can turn back the clock and compare earlier versions of the code to help fix the mistake while minimizing disruption to all team members.

There are various version control systems, the most popular of them is Git.

Module Approach

Here, the codebase is split into small modules and each developer is assigned to a single module.
The target is to keep modules as independent as possible so you can build, test and release your module even if no other modules work.
These different modules communicate with each other using APIs that are backward compatible.

An API is backward compatible if a program written to consume the API working with one version of the API can work the same way with future versions of the API seamlessly.

The Module approach helps to reduce codebase conflicts and work interferences between developers.

Pair Programming

Pair programming is an agile software development technique where two programmers work together on a single computer or workstation.
It consists of:

  • the driver – the programmer who writes the code and
  • the navigator – the programmer who reviews the code.

The pairing variation can be between

  • newbie to newbie,
  • expert to newbie or
  • expert to expert.

Pair programming increases resilience, produces better solutions and fosters mutual learning.

Two Programmers collaborating together as a team

Pair Programming between a novice and an expert

Smaller Task Assignment

This is one of the most common approaches among programmers.

The entire project can be divided into smaller chunks of tasks and shared between programmers.

They can be working on the navbar, product page, footer, payment integrations, home page or secondary pages.

When completed, it’s tested thoroughly and the whole project is synced using version control systems.

By so doing, each programmer is able to build the entire project on their own development machine without affecting other developers. 

Whenever changes are made to the master file, each programmer gets updated and the cycle continues.

Code Collaboration Tools

Code collaboration tools are apps or services that allow programmers to collaborate while working remotely.

A standard code collaboration tool has multiple communication options (voice, video, text chat), multiplayer, fluid and responsive experience and full access to one’s usual local development environment and tooling.

Some of the best code collaboration tools include:

Visual Studio Live Share, CodeAnywhere, CodeSandbox Live, Teletype for Atom, Remote Collab for Sublime Text, CodePen and CodeTogether.

Subtle Recap

Multiple programmers work together using a version control system like Git, split small codebase module that communicates via APIs that are backward compatible, pair programming consisting of a driver and a navigator, task division between programmers and using code collaboration tools like Visual Studio Live Share.

Conclusion

Programmers may decide to work alone on personal projects or mini-tasks but for large or enterprise projects, teamwork is a must and it’s an integral part of software development processes.

The team structure varies according to the project size, company and the applied project methodology.

There are various tools and software that make collaborative programming among two or more developers possible and less tedious.
Getting started with teamwork might seem exhaustive but with the tips shared above, you’ll gain the much-needed confidence in no time.

Always remember:

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Ever work with a team before or just getting started?
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.

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Till we meet again on another article,

Happy Coding!

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About Website Hurdles

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I’m Stanley, founder of Website Hurdles and I curate high-quality guides geared towards making money online, profitable blogging and building passive income.

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