Product development guiding principle: The basic unit of product development is the team, not the individual

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Guiding principle in effective product development culture.

Teams are not the same as groups of individuals

Effective product development is not brilliant individuals working independently but rather people working together in teams and teams of teams.

From The Wisdom of Teams, there are 5 factors that distinguish a “team” from just a group of individuals:

• shared purpose;
• shared definition of performance;
• shared working approach;
• complementary skills;
• mutual accountability(aka “we’re in it together”)

Shared working agreements over optimising solely for individual preferences

An effective shared working approach is neither everyone works the way they like without consideration of others nor everyone follows a process that has no consideration of individual preferences.

Teams require a shared working approach

A shared team working approach should be a shared decision, likely determined by consent, not consensus.