Bad Apples
Author
This short blog entry just caught my attention.
The three "bad apple" archetypes mentioned (pessimist, jerk, and slacker) clearly don't cover all types. I remember being in one team with two bad apples. One had the best intentions but simply could not let go of an idea, no matter how poor, once he had invested time in it. Another was bright and enthusiastic, but spectacularly ignorant and preoccupied -- nobody knew he needed help with something until the last minute.
Let's try to enumerate "bad apples" types. What have you experienced?
Also, have you ever been a bad apple yourself? I remember in one team I was over-confident and said "yes" to every request, thinking I was being helpful, but that raised expectations to unrealistic levels and I ended up disappointing several people, whose own work was seriousy devalued because my contribution was abandoned, scaled-down, or patchy.
Author
Ooh ooh ooh, let's name them. I call my first two "Blinkered" and "Half-There", and myself "Naïve Wannabe"
Quote:Original post by spraffOne had the best intentions but simply could not let go of an idea, no matter how poor, once he had invested time in it.Been there. I did a group project in HCI. We had a team member that was so confident in his idea of a certain feature in the GUI we were designing but in practice and the other 2 members and I really didn't like it, but he wouldn't let the idea go. He even went behind our backs and drew the features in a separate part of our paper prototype and even butted into the presentation one of our group members gave to point out his feature. Frustrating to say the least. (The best part was when the professor pointed out the feature wasn't that useful and was targeted a little too narrowly toward a certain audience. :P)
However, I myself have been a "bad apple" in a group. I was in a games programming class and after doing a few games in groups I got a little too ambitious on the last project and ended up not finishing it and letting my group down. Sucks.
I've been a bad apple a few times.
Usually it involved biting off more work than I could chew.
Usually it involved biting off more work than I could chew.
I've been a pessimistic team member before, but I was the Test Coordindator; that was my job! [smile]
The worst type of bad apple I'd found is the Prima Donna: a special kind of jerk that rubbishes everyones ideas and demands special attention but actually has a good amount of skill themselves (although usually not as fantastic as they think). The few examples I've seen tend to be in senior technical positions where they have a lot of power while shirking responsibility. I find this type especially annoying because are really hard to get rid of. They're one of the most skilled people on the team, usually workaholics and have control of a core part of the project, such as code written in a way only they understand (gah, I hate that!). But they can destroy morale by ignoring or rubbishing the rest of the team, and wreck havoc on a project timeline by demanding to work next on whatever they feel like rather than the boring work that's on the critical path.
The worst type of bad apple I'd found is the Prima Donna: a special kind of jerk that rubbishes everyones ideas and demands special attention but actually has a good amount of skill themselves (although usually not as fantastic as they think). The few examples I've seen tend to be in senior technical positions where they have a lot of power while shirking responsibility. I find this type especially annoying because are really hard to get rid of. They're one of the most skilled people on the team, usually workaholics and have control of a core part of the project, such as code written in a way only they understand (gah, I hate that!). But they can destroy morale by ignoring or rubbishing the rest of the team, and wreck havoc on a project timeline by demanding to work next on whatever they feel like rather than the boring work that's on the critical path.
Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
I've been a pessimistic team member before, but I was the Test Coordindator; that was my job! [smile]
The worst type of bad apple I'd found is the Prima Donna: a special kind of jerk that rubbishes everyones ideas and demands special attention but actually has a good amount of skill themselves (although usually not as fantastic as they think). The few examples I've seen tend to be in senior technical positions where they have a lot of power while shirking responsibility. I find this type especially annoying because are really hard to get rid of. They're one of the most skilled people on the team, usually workaholics and have control of a core part of the project, such as code written in a way only they understand (gah, I hate that!). But they can destroy morale by ignoring or rubbishing the rest of the team, and wreck havoc on a project timeline by demanding to work next on whatever they feel like rather than the boring work that's on the critical path.
I've been in situation when rest of team is outright incompetent (and unaware of it) and have mostly rather bad ideas, which I must carefully tiptoe around so that they never understand mistake. (When they aren't total fools, that's near impossible). Americans seem to take it much more personally than Europeans in my experience, and I never worked with Australians.
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
