observations on team dysfunction.

When you add a "lead" to a remote team.

Have a clear idea as to what his roles and responsibilities are from the on site team's point of view. (oh... and _communicate_ that).

If you say "we're open to your ideas" but want it done your way... then don't say that.

If you are having a daily project stand up meeting:
1) It should be run by the pm
2) Only tasks, time and blocking issues should be discussed
3) If using a speaker phone be very clear about who is speaking and when a transition from one location to the other should occur, due to lack of visual cues.

mixing of roles - bad

So the one thing that seems to bite me every time is when I'm on a gig and I have mixed roles.

No mixing a developer and architect is fine. So is mixing software engineer and architect or developer. In fact any of those three, mixed together is fine. They can overlap and switching from one to the next doesn't tend to impact productivity.

No the big one is Project Manager. You can't mix it with the above roles.

Why? Cause if you're in a P.M. role you have to be able to P.M. 100% of the time. Tracking you people, project, time. Communicating with the execs, making sure things are on track or if not on track making sure the right people know right away so they can decide what to do.

But... mix the programming side with the p.m. side and one slides... causing it all to slide.

Sure you could build a schedule around doing one set of tasks then another... but development doesn't really work that way. You need time to noodle around. The p.m. aspect also needs time, keeping track of who is doing what etc.

So you can mix some roles but the p.m. needs to be independent, imo.