Question

Colonel H. Wayne Wolfe led a squadron of software developers, most of whom were relatively young and inexperienced. All of the experienced developers were assigned as team leaders. To improve productivity and quality, the Colonel took the most skilled developer, by a wide margin, who would rather be programming than serving as a team leader and assigned him to be responsible for finding and resolving project problems for the whole squadron. He was told that his performance would be judged by the percent of projects delivered on time and the number of defects discovered in the field across all of the projects for the whole squadron. He was very successful at doing this and loved his new job. What do you think he did and why do you believe he was so successful?

Answer 1

Colonel H Wayne Wolfe was leading a team of software developers and led them to success due to following reasons:

• He has done a SWOT analysis of each team member and has assigned tasks according to their strengths.
• The experience developers were assigned the responsibility as team leaders to support junior, young and in an experienced team member. They were given targets and goals with enough motivation and incentive linked to performance.
• The most skilled developer was motivated and assigned the responsibility for finding and resolving the problem of the entire project. This was using his skill set as a programmer efficiently in problem identification and resolution. He was further motivated by linking his performance with the percent of the project delivered on time and number of defects discovered across the whole squadron.
• The Colonel has made the team perform with the following measures:

1. Clear identification of individual skill sets
2. Assigning responsibility with targets and deadlines
3. Creating problem identification and resolution systems
4. Using a process-oriented approach
5. Rewarding performance and achievement of targets
6. Measuring the performance and giving incentives.
7. Using a disciplined approach to deliver results