Group Work

There’s a quote from Steve Jobs that I really like and I think it’s perfect to start this blog: “Great things in business are never done by one person, they’re done by a team of people.”. In past entries I’ve mentioned the importance of soft skills to communicate efficiently with the clients, our bosses and our coworkers, as well as the value of respect and courtesy towards them. I’ve also mentioned how in Pernix Solutions people recognize that group work is the best way to keep a great company going. To me, the junction of all these blogs that we’ve been writing allows us to paint a complete picture of what it’s needed to progress and succeed in a real work environment, regardless of the tasks we do.

Essentially, most of the success comes down to group work, so it’s imperative to consider different aspects of it. Of course there is people who feel that they work better alone, and there are others who feel more productive doing group work activities like pair programing. Regardless of how you feel, you should not be against the idea of working with others, even more in a carreer like Software Engineering. Organizing a group and reaching consensus can be hard sometimes, but once it’s done, each person has the opportunity to learn something new or different perspectives that in the long term can help them improve their skills.

So, undoubtedly, group work has many benefits: efficiency in problem solving and task completing makes up for the time we need to organize as a group; feedback helps us learn from others and become better professionals; we are able to detect the things we’re having trouble with to identify the weaknesses we have to work on, as well as recognize our strengths; and we strengthen our interpersonal skills, among many other benefits. When group work is successful, the whole company benefits from it, as do we in our personal lives.