The pragmatic programmers wrote an article titled Software Entropy that discussed the concept of a “broken window” in software.

The gist of the article was that, when coding, there are things in the code that you know are not right and that you should fix them. If you don’t fix them it will lead to an overall perception that the quality of the software is not great but that state is acceptable. This perception will spread throughout the project and other developers will allow other quality issues to pass and eventually the total quality of the system will suffer. I believe that the authors highlight a very important human behavior here.

Notice that I didn’t say coder or developer behavior but I said human behavior. I believe that the observations are founded and that the behavior pertains to people as a whole. The reference to research on crime and urban decay support this belief. Suppose for a moment that this is true. If so, then that leads me to ask myself the question “Are there broken windows in teams?”

I think there are definitely broken windows in teams. What do I mean by that, you might be asking. Have you ever been on a team where someone wasn’t contributing to their full potential and everyone knew it? Have you ever been on a team where someone was extremely negative or corrosive and was creating a bad team chemistry? Have you ever been on a team where someone was arrogant and aggressive?

I think these are broken windows too. If you don’t do something about it then the total quality of your team will suffer and I believe this will surely affect the total quality of the solution too. If you have a cancerous person on your team you need to turn them around, isolate them, or send them packing.