Development Preference

[DanielRand47]

I'll thow my thoughts in here as well. The past four years, I've developed small solo projects that never saw the light of day, (minus my very first CS and its remastered version) which prompted me to go in a more team directed form of development. I liked the solo development for quite awhile, but as mentioned earlier, it is very easy to lose motivation. For me I almost have to be in the mood to work on my own CS. Whereas in a team there are others who do some of that work for you.

In a team environment, there are several things that one can find as negative. As both Darkfire and Spelos mentioned, there can be tension and disagreements amongst developers and scheduling issues. However, it can be a very fun and enjoyable experience at the same time. Frankly while I have stepped down from project management for the time being, I have found working and leading the past two teams that I've been apart of to be very beneficial. Yes there was disagreements and what not, but it allows you to meet new people and get to know them a bit more. And it's a great way to see their works and to promote yourself in the community if you're a good team member/manager.

I will say to anyone who is looking to manage a team, that they know what they are getting into. If you have never worked in a team setting before, then don't go for a project manager position just yet. What I have learned, (and likely many others in the community) is that it requires you to have good organization (not too much), good communication, and good planning. You need to be able to listen to your developers and consider all their ideas, as well as be up to date on their conversations amongst eachother. Sometimes their ideas will be better than yours and vice versa. One thing I learned from the last team I managed, was that I distributed the work evenly, but let it slowly fall on just one or two members, which was poor organization on my part. I could go on and on, but that's enough of my rant.

Overall, I prefer developing in a team once I have made enough development progress on a solo CS.