Too many cooks spoil the broth. Effective teamwork does not mean we all need to work on the exact same thing at the same time. The best teams I've been on have

Too many cooks spoil the broth. Effective teamwork does not mean we all need to work on the exact same thing at the same time. The best teams I've been on have people who are "t shaped" and have the autonomy to self organize. It's ok to collaborate but it's usually best to communicate what needs to be done, split up the responsibilities, and then complete the work independently. In my experience smaller teams output higher quality work at a faster rate. Bigger teams have less accountability and are prone to wasting time bike shedding. All of the problems the author states are symptoms of other issues in the organization which will not be solved by this particular style of group work. Incomprehensible code is still incomprehensible regardless of whether it was written by 1 or 10 people. Everyone is bad at this to begin with, how can you expect to get better if you have someone else solve all of your problems? Going through a bit of a struggle is a good thing, as it gives you confidence that you can solve new problems as they arise.