How to unite a team when there is a developer doing minimum efforts? [duplicate]

Question

We are a few students working on a school project that will become a startup in a year.

As we want the project to work and be sure that the startup will work when we finish, we all work very hard on documentation and code.

The problem is that one of us doesn't want to join the startup in a year and only stays as a member of the school project.

Even though it's for school, our organization is the same as a startup (hence a workplace, this is why I'm posting the question here), I lead the team, we have a CTO and developers, including this member.

But as he won't join the startup, he always asks for "the easiest tasks" and is pissed when someone tells him something about his work.

I'm not that concerned, I go by the classical policy of "as long as the job is done I'm fine", but other team members start to lose motivation and patience towards this guy.

I don't want him to start feeling left behind, yet the rest of the team reasonably thinks it's unfair that someone can put minimum efforts and get away with it.

How can I make the team more united?

Answer 1

To bring this fully into the workplace, your developer is essentially suffering from "Short timer's syndrome".

This happens in workplaces when someone is close to retirement, or is leaving soon due to any of a number of reasons.

Go back and address the rest of the team bluntly:

He will not be part of the startup and he will not profit from the startup. It is not fair to expect him to put in the same effort and essentially work for free. He is working, but he is only working for the class credit. His work is equal to his compensation. We are treating him as a contractor and you as the full-time employees.

Start with that. If they continue to be annoyed, remind them that he's going to be gone soon and they won't have to deal with him. Tell them that this is something that they will have to live with in REAL LIFE(tm) as well and that it is a lesson to learn sooner rather than later.

This answer doesn't FULLY translate to the workplace. If this were an actual workplace situation, then there would be the systematic transfer of roles and responsibilities, drawing down this person's influence and importance. However, since this is also a school project, you can't just "fire" him as you would be able to do when this becomes an actual startup.

Answer 2

As of now, you need to focus on the class project. Anything you get from this team member that helps the future startup is just an extra benefit.

Team projects should be evaluated on:

• the end product
• professor/teacher evaluation the level of participation of each member
• team evaluation of the level of participation of each member

Unfortunately, many teachers do not take it this far. They should be checking code check ins, documentation, discussion participation (very easy if this is online), message board postings are very important. I think there should be a one-two week trial period, where if a team member doesn't pull his weight, he can be voted off the team and do the project on their own. Members don't take this lightly because they will all have to pick up the slack.

For the benefit of your startup, make sure you learn from this process how important it is to decide what is expected of everyone, how you're going to assess their participation and what are the consequences when people don't comply or perform up to expectations. Relying on being the Three Musketeers and thinking everyone will give their dying devotion is not realistic and a big risk.

Answer 3

Since this is a class, talk to the professor about the team member not pulling his weight.

Then if he doesn't want to take any action to lower his grade for less participation or to talk to him about the importance of fully participating, you need to take action on your own.

Sit down with the designated CTO and possibly the professor and decide what participation looks like for people who want to go on to the startup and for people who do not.

Then sit down with the team and explain that you have two sets of roles and this is what people there just for class participation will do and this is the role of people going on to the start-up afterwards. Explain that everyone will be code reviewed and that even those not going on will have to meet certain standards. Explain that negative attitudes from either group will be mentioned when the professor asks about team participation.

As an aside, talk to a lawyer about whether he has a legal stake in the start-up even if he doesn't go on to it. There may be documents you need people not going on to sign revoking any rights they have.