4min read.
What better way to start a post than with Han Solo!
Maybe you are aware of this meme shown in the picture above, warning us about the dangers of going alone for an adventure – or in that case going solo. Let’s not get into the discussion whether Han shot first, but he seems to always be better off when he has his co-pilot Chewbacca with him.
And yes, this intro might be click-baiting. But to put it in a work context:
It is dangerous to work solo!
There sometimes seems to be the belief that “working solo” is the most efficient way for people to work. And it sometimes may even feel this way but we tend to forget that this is probably only true when your work in question is fully independent. In this case this would mean your work does not require any skill, input, knowledge or approval of others. If you are really really sure this holds true for you:
Congratulations! You are in a very rare work situation.
Unfortunately, this usually is not true for the vast majority of people. And I can already hear you say: “But I can break it down into smaller, independent parts…”, which is what we usually do. But this is where it gets worse. This kind of work still is dependent, we just choose to break it down and ignore the dependencies – at least for some time – before they come back to haunt us. Or as Han Solo would put it: “I’ve got a bad feeling about his!”
With this “partial” work – parts that are part of a bigger work process – there are some pitfalls that we must keep in mind:
Partial knowledge:
With a complex system it is certain that an individual worker has just a fraction of the full system knowledge and maybe also only a fraction of the necessary skills. Every change that we make will then have to be integrated probably at some point by another team. The more work is done solo, the more this integration becomes increasingly difficult.
Over-Communication:
This is somehow derived from the one above. If you work solo and others need to build upon your work, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to know who you will need to notify about your changes. This usually leads to people broadcasting such information – you kind of have to over-communicate to make sure you reach everyone who could be relying in your info.
Your work is done, job NOT finished:
While your work is done, you are probably starting on the next thing. But how long can you wait for feedback about what you got done before until it either renders whatever you started afterwards useless or will force you to interrupt what you are doing now because there have been changes and what you did before? A system that itself ensures constant interruptions will cause pain and delay.
But luckily there is also some things we can do to improve:
- Instead of splitting the work among individuals, think about bigger chunks you can work on as a team. Start together, work together and finish together.
- Mistakes are expensive! So, hunt them down, and then interrupt ongoing work to fix them. Pooling expertise and using techniques such as ensemble programming and test driven development (TDD) can greatly reduce the number of errors as well as allowing a team to learn to avoid making more.
Have fun!
Curiosity Reading Material
- Ottinger, Tim: Partial knowledge and unfinished work: the pitfalls of solo working. URL https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/partial-knowledge-and-unfinished-work-the-pitfalls-of-solo-working/. – British Computer Society
