Individual Work Styles & Productivity

This is not just about the Software Process, but rather includes and overview of work styles.

Recommended Books

• Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. The Mythical Man Month. Addison-Wesley, 1972
• Ian Sommerville, Software Engineering, 6th Edition. Addison-Wesley, 2000.

In the recent decade more and more companies are realizing the benefits of highly diverse software development teams. It’s good to know yourself well, to know how to optimize your productivity as well as work well with others.

You can think of workstyles as perspectives in tackling and organizing work, or motivations that allow you to enter your productivity flow state. For example you might make decisions logically based on analytically driven data-oriented person working with a coworker who is more supportive and emotionally-oriented and vice versa. When you understand your strengths as well as your teammates’ strengths, it helps to avoid conflicts.

Flow State

In another vein, self-awareness of your work style can be helpful in achieving what psychologists call the “flow state”, which is where one finds it easy to stay focused on a task to completion.

When you know your work style, it becomes possible to articulate what works better for you to your team, as some examples are described in Do you know how each person on your team likes to work?.