Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

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Nice article, but IMO it's essentially a software-specific version of the Belbin Roles[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Role_Inventories

    Starter -> Resource Investigator
    Architect -> Shaper
    Debugger -> Teamworker
    Finisher -> Completer Finisher

Roughly.

What I miss most in Jacques' article is the Plant, the person who thinks things over and then comes forward with problems, issues and risks in the chosen approach. It's, fortunately, a very common trait among SW engineers though, so I guess every team has at least a bunch.

A similar system is discussed for CEOs as well. The entrepreneur who starts a company is not always a great consolidator who gets everything settled and organised into a functioning whole once the money starts coming in. The next two I think are substantial growth (being able to take an established business and grow it into a dominant player in its industry) and the last I think is something like holding, being able to take a large (and usually somewhat unwieldy) business and keep it from losing ground.

There's probably a few variations on these as well (and I might be misremembering them slightly).

Maybe this is better:

  Architect -> Plant + Specialist
  Starter   -> Resource Investigator + Shaper
  Debugger  -> Completer Finisher
  Finisher  -> Teamworker + Implementer

Nice

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