Abundance vs. scarcity

Towards the bottom of a recent post about testers and developers working together, Brian Marick writes about the cultivatation of "a gift economy of the sort described by Marcel Mauss, one where a person's status depends on how much she gives to others." His observation struck a chord with me: a characteristic of the high performance teams I have seen is that they maintain a culture of abundance and optimism, despite facing the same challenges that lead to a culture of scarcity and fear in other teams. (Interestingly, I have probably seen some of the highest performing individuals in these other teams. I'm still undecided whether to believe that the teams performed less well overall "despite the Star Player" or "because of the Star Player".)

As a coach I know that I want to share with others some of what I know and enjoy about software development, and to demonstrate that such things can (and should) be shared.