Is team work really better?

Many of the modern thinkers promote team work as the strategy to follow upon all projects or tasks across organizations. This lead several organizations to fully embrace team work and follow it to extremes.

But as to any approach, team work has pros and cons, and should be followed where its pros outweigh its cons. Here are some of the cases that i found to be better suited for team work approach:

1. How complex is the task? If the task is fairly easy and does not require too much effort, having one person perform the task can reduce cost – team work does turn out costly as it requires a team), as well as time – adding team members requires more interaction between them as well good communication which would take more time than a solo person working on the task.
2. Can the work be distributed to well defined units? You don’t want one person to be your requirements gatherer, developer, implementer, customer support… Having different well-defined units allows each unit/team to focus exactly on their targets and better accomplish them.
3. Is your team in sync? Harmony is critical in team work. If you have a group of individuals who can smoothly communicate and work together, you are better off having them work as a team, otherwise you will be shooting yourself in the foot.
4. Need several perspectives? If your task needs different thoughts, then it might be wise to involve a team that can brainstorm and then come up with a final approach to implement.

So it is not really a default practice to give the work to the team, you need to think it over whether the work needs to be accomplished by a team, whether you will be really making the right choice to go the “team approach”, and whether you have the “right” team to do the job.

Good luck!