The summary at the top seems to indicate that a team will have high impact if one guy does all the work and have a "team" unimportant work. So not quite what I was hoping to see.
What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
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Re: What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
#12This sounds like they are reversing the likely cause-and-effect: "Even in larger teams, high-impact teams have core and support cadres. A small number — sometimes just one — of the team do the majority of the work, while other, non-core members act in support roles." Successful projects will tend to bring in a larger number of contributors, most of whom will only make a few contributions. So successful projects will…
Yes, I had the same reaction. I don't think the 'more people participating' observation is so useful. But I find the related -- and almost opposing -- one to be useful and thought-provoking, and matching my experience and suspicions: > Even in larger teams, high-impact teams have core and support cadres. A small number — sometimes just one — of the team do the majority of the work, while other, non-core members act i…
It does appear to be the 90-9-1% rule of the Internet at play, but you might be on to something.
In a more traditional organization you would have architects and other senior development leads plowing the way with a number of subordinates that provide the necessary but dirty grunt work scaffolding around the central architecture. It's not that they're doing more work. Instead they are charging through the hard problems that more junior developers struggle around, but don't have the time to dive deep into tiny implementation details required for large projects.
The interesting data would likely come from these closed sourced projects and complement the data of the open projects. I would love to see that analysis and comparison.
Re: What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
#13This sounds like they are reversing the likely cause-and-effect: "Even in larger teams, high-impact teams have core and support cadres. A small number — sometimes just one — of the team do the majority of the work, while other, non-core members act in support roles." Successful projects will tend to bring in a larger number of contributors, most of whom will only make a few contributions. So successful projects will…
Continuing to thought that high-impact 'teams' have a cluster of fans around one high performer. Perhaps that just serves to motivate that person - a lively interest in their project shown by a variety of people.
Re: What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
#14This sounds like they are reversing the likely cause-and-effect: "Even in larger teams, high-impact teams have core and support cadres. A small number — sometimes just one — of the team do the majority of the work, while other, non-core members act in support roles." Successful projects will tend to bring in a larger number of contributors, most of whom will only make a few contributions. So successful projects will…
Its a cycle - at certain states in the bootup of the project, things work one way, like when a new project gets started it only gets growing because there are key individuals with lots of talent - but as the project grows, the cycle flow changes and it works because it attracts more people who may not necessarily be 'as talented' but nevertheless contribute in other ways, and this thus brings in new talent, and so on and around it goes. I would not cast such an absolute light on it as you seem to propose; these things are an active process, not manifest material.
Re: What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
#15I find that most mature projects are incredibly hesitant to accept patches. I have found critical bugs in some projects and the people with repo access let the pull request sit there for a year or more.
I've experienced this too. It only makes me hesitate when I have something to contribute, knowing the fighting I'll have to do for something as simple as better documentation.
Re: What makes teams successful? 150,000 GitHub projects analyzed
#16I find that most mature projects are incredibly hesitant to accept patches. I have found critical bugs in some projects and the people with repo access let the pull request sit there for a year or more.
Any examples/PR links?
Sorry but I'm not willing to make a public enemy out of any of these projects just to prove a point.