Application of MBTI in the software development team

People are by no means a resource. On the one hand, we cannot set up posts for different people, and on the other hand, we cannot ignore human differences. In the face of problems, do not always look for problems from people's attitude or morality, but reflect on the deficiencies in personnel arrangement and process construction. Expect a person to get rid of his shortcomings and give full play to his advantages.

Preface

MBTI divides people into 16 types of personality traits. I cannot assert whether they can express the true side of a person. After all, they are just statistical results. My thinking is not about the result of its classification, but about its classification method.

 

In teamwork, various emotions, preferences, and prejudices have always influenced our judgment on people and things. We emphasize the importance of the first impression, because once labeled, it is difficult to get rid of it.

 

Different people in the software development team have different performances in different activities, which is all natural. For example, when an engineer who has done a great job in the maintenance team is transferred to the project team, the performance will plummet, and both the company and the individual are suffering huge losses. Some people solve bugs and always introduce new problems. It seems that the code quality is low, but it can make breakthroughs in technical research.

 

People are by no means a resource. On the one hand, we cannot set up posts for different people, and on the other hand, we cannot ignore human differences. From the perspective of human nature, how can we rationally observe and treat people around us in order to foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses? MBTI can provide a good reference in this respect. MBTI emphasizes the hope that a person will not give full play to his shortcomings. Although our childhood education and environmental creation have made us tend to choose a universally accepted way of doing things, we need to have more patience and rationality to deal with the uncertainty, or even conflicting performance.

 

MBTI Introduction

In 1942, the Swiss psychoanalytics Mr. Jung (A freusi student) proposed the concept of personality classification for the first time. He believes that perception and judgment are two basic functions of the brain. Different people tend to perceive differently-some focus more on intuition and others focus more on reality. Similarly, different people have different judgment tendencies-some prefer rational analysis to conclude that some prefer emotional considerations and more emotional. At the same time, these two basic functions are affected by different sources of energy (introverted or external. Modern American psychologist katherinecook Briggs proposed that the two basic functions of the brain are also influenced by lifestyle preferences: Planning and diffuse.

* From www.apesk.com

According to the MBTI personality dimensions provided by instructor Li Tao in <Project Management>:

Personality Dimension of MBTI Model
How people interact with the world	Extrovert)	Introvert)
Types of information we care about	Sensing)	Intuition)
How do we make decisions?	Thinking)	Emotion (feeling)
Our preferred lifestyle	Judgment)	Cognition)

Based on my own learning and understanding, I have summarized the main points and preferences of each dimension as follows:

 

The features after their combination can be viewed in some professional and comprehensive introductions. In <Project Management>, Mr. Li analyzed the two dimensions (Sn & JP) that have a great impact on his work. Here, I have selected three dimensions except the margin or inner inclination for analysis. As mentioned above, I am not prepared to talk about and cannot talk about the characteristics of a personality combination. Instead, I focus on the impact of different tendencies on the work of the software team in three dimensions. It is difficult to understand yourself and others by looking at the tendency of one dimension, because they always produce different results and performance under the interaction.

 

Through the introduction of the four dimensions in the above list, we can summarize the following manifestations of different tendencies in different dimensions:

Sensing)	Focus on the details that you can perceive and observe, and enjoy using and pondering known skills. Linear thinking is preferred. Sometimes it is true and is always taken away by unimportant details.
Intuition)	Focus on the overall and Development Trend of things, focus on imagination and creativity, and like to learn new skills, but it is easy to get bored. An active mind, too jumping, sometimes leads to lower efficiency.
Thinking)	Focusing on the logical relationship between things, we like to make decisions and evaluate things through objective analysis. Rational and fair. Yuantong is more important than frankness. Make a decision after objective analysis. Sometimes it shows an old scene and lacks momentum.
Emotion (feeling)	Focusing on yourself and the emotional influence on others, and taking values as criteria for determination, yuantong and frankness are equally important. When expressing your opinions, you will be retained, sometimes emotional, and sometimes cautious.
Judgment)	Like to make plans and decisions, be willing to manage and control, and hope to keep your life in order. Pay attention to the results (complete the task), follow the steps, be organized, respect the time limit, and like to make decisions.
Cognition)	Flexible, trying to understand, adapt to the environment, tend to leave room, like loose and free lifestyle. Pay attention to the process and constantly adjust goals as information changes. You like to have multiple choices and do breakthrough things. Sometimes it shows that the execution is not in place.

* Refer to the Report provided by www.apesk.com.

 

Interestingly, the tendency of the same dimension is only to express travel as a feature. Based on this, there are still different results. For example, if F is paying attention to the emotional impact, some people may be very emotional and actively express their views, while others tend to retain their views to accommodate others' feelings. But it is certain that F must be a person with rich and delicate feelings.

 

Composition of software development teams

There have been many insights on the composition of the team. The most famous is the surgical team. Some Ideas about team members who are purely homogeneous and of the same level have long been rejected (reference. I have forgotten another article that is closer to the software industry and more authoritative ). From the perspective of personnel management, there are also echelon construction and cultural construction to ensure the healthy development of the team. In fact, no matter which form of team, we must pursue mutual complementarity and win-win. Even for software development teams (not including artists), it is not purely technical to organize the team. It is like a good diamond must be placed with a hoop to wear it on its hand.

 

For example, from the perspective of job setup, when talking about team composition, we must know what the team wants to do and how much work expectation it involves. I use work expectations or performance, not work projects, because different people may have different results when doing different things. If you understand your expectations at work, you can easily find the right person or the method or process that helps you do the right thing. For example, focusing on the development process is an expectation. Some companies have strict requirements on the process for engineers, while some companies are in the initial stage, I am not very concerned about whether to follow the development process (there may be no process definition at all ).

 

The following are my general expectations of the software development team (not a work project ):

Follow the development process

Focus on and improve work methods

High-quality code

High-quality Design

Research and development of new projects or new technologies

Code Maintenance

Focusing on and enhancing harmonious interpersonal relationships of teams

Organization and coordination

Share and discuss

Self-driving

Result orientation

Interest/achievement orientation

New Employee Training

 

 

  Use MBTI to organize software development teams 

After analyzing the differences in thinking in various dimensions of MBTI, and combining the characteristics required for team performance, we can find the right people or people to find the right positions. The following analysis only indicates that it is not applicable to situations with obvious preferences that have been trained and have a process guarantee. For example, you can use the check list or mind map to balance S and N. This is not in the scope of this article.

 

For example, if there are high requirements for the development process, such as in some outsourcing projects and some specific industry software projects, there are strict procedures to ensure the software quality. Obviously, S and J are suitable. Because S pays attention to details and J pays attention to order. If it is changed to P, it will not take long for him to endure the simple and repetitive review process. Either try to change the process or leave. In the same way, s will be constantly disturbed by some details in the face of problems. It will be too persistent in its own experience and judgment, and may not necessarily bring about a good design, some risks will be introduced in the face of new problems.

 

N and P may consider different solutions because of their active thinking. They often make breakthroughs in design or difficult problems, but this does not mean that they will write high-quality code. Especially when writing some common code, the performance is not as good as S and T.

 

Take new personnel training as an example. Do not assume that any engineer with experience and time and energy can bring new personnel. This is a system engineering. Apart from the company's training system construction, different mentors will also bring different results. How can technical experts clearly explain the problem in a way that can be understood by the other party? How to outline big picture for newcomers? How can we effectively encourage and stimulate the growth of new people? Some new people like to master themselves, regardless of the attitude and requirements of the other party, he can grow up to be happy. There are also new people who want to be clear about each other and can gradually grow. This is where MBTI can play.

 

Another example is a combination. If S is combined with T, it means that the observation focuses on all actually existing things and the decision-making will go through rational judgment. Strict style. If it is a business project with high quality requirements (such as zero tolerance for negative [side effect]), it is naturally appropriate.

 

Finally, based on my past experience, I made an adaptation for different performances (corresponding to expectations), made an initial value for permissions, and gradually improved them in the future.

The personality may be stable, but the performance may be different. After human training or corresponding process construction, we can make full use of our advantages. The premise is that we should understand the differences between people. In the face of problems, do not always look for problems from people's attitude or morality, but reflect on the deficiencies in personnel arrangement and process construction. MBTI may be a good starting point.