Re:Great People Are Overrated
by highfreq on Monday June 20, 2011 @06:21PM
(#2676381)
I think if you attempt to hire 1000 pretty good programmers, it is likely you'll end up with a least one exceptional programmer.
If you were to divide up the 1000 pretty good programmers into 200 teams of 5 people each, and give them the same high level of difficulty task as a team of 5 exceptional programmers. What are the odds that the exceptional team produces the best result?
The ratio in developer ability is a bit hard to get a handle on. The study seems to show that for analysts the environment can also play a big role in individual performance. That is also true in software development. Good leadership, strong peers, and the right cultural fit can probably make at least a 2X improvement in individual performance over tyrannical leadership, mediocre peers and a corrosive culture. Domain expertise is another element in performance, often just in avoiding obvious but still costly mistakes.
Some companies thinks they've hired superstars, but really only hired a bunch of arrogant pricks.
If you were to divide up the 1000 pretty good programmers into 200 teams of 5 people each, and give them the same high level of difficulty task as a team of 5 exceptional programmers. What are the odds that the exceptional team produces the best result?
The ratio in developer ability is a bit hard to get a handle on. The study seems to show that for analysts the environment can also play a big role in individual performance. That is also true in software development. Good leadership, strong peers, and the right cultural fit can probably make at least a 2X improvement in individual performance over tyrannical leadership, mediocre peers and a corrosive culture. Domain expertise is another element in performance, often just in avoiding obvious but still costly mistakes.
Some companies thinks they've hired superstars, but really only hired a bunch of arrogant pricks.