We have had people using TeamFit for about three weeks now, not a long-time in the grand scheme of things, but enough to get a feel for how people are using it.

One thing several people have mentioned is the value of having a record of projects. Having a record of what you have worked on over the years and whom you have worked with is of great value in itself. Imagine what a rich store this would be if you had a record like this for your whole career. It would be a place to track what you had done, who you had actually worked with (rather than just linked up with), what had happened on projects and of course how your skills have deepened and diversified over time (and what skills have dropped off or atrophied!).

You can give TeamFit a try here.

And if you have signed up for TeamFit,
you can see the projects I have made public here.

But not everyone sees it this way.

Several people have said things like …

“I would never share my project history on a public site. Why would I do that? It’s an invasion of privacy.”

“I don’t need to keep a list of projects I have worked on and who I have worked with. I know that. And the one’s I can’t remember I probably don’t want to remember.”

“I don’t want people to rate me on my skills and I don’t want to rate other people. If I have feedback to give a person I will do so directly. And in private.”

On sharing…

How much and what to share with whom is something all of us are working through in a highly connected world. My personal choice is to share and to do this both personally and on-line. I learn from what other people have shared with me, including many people who share things on-line. I feel an obligation to share back. The more we can learn from each other the better off we will all be. There is some evidence that this is a generational thing, and that Millennials are more comfortable with sharing. Or it could be that people are more comfortable sharing when they are young and are establishing their networks. As I am often involved in new things I feel the need to constantly be establishing my network.

On keeping records…

I forget most of what I do and I think this is true of most people. If I don’t keep notes I have trouble remembering what I was doing a month ago. And I don’t think I have a singularly poor memory. Most of us don’t really have a very clear view of our own past, what we have done, whom we worked with, and how our skills have matured. TeamFit can change this.

Yes, you could do this with a document. I keep some of my personal records in a spreadsheet that I share with my wife. But this is not a very effective way to do this. It is hard to collaborate selectively (I want to collaborate on a project-by-project basis with the people who worked on the project with me), to build shared memories, and to see how skills are changing in my network and how I compare with others.

On being rated…

Some people are uncomfortable rating others and being rated. They are also aware of the ‘grieving and gaming’ behaviors that can make such rankings suspect. So they decide not to play. This can take the extreme form of deciding not to participate on TeamFit, or of simply not adding one’s own skills and not endorsing others.

Grieving

Giving a person a low score not because they deserve it but because they have annoyed you in some way. A form of bullying.

Gaming

People giving each other high scores to make themselves look better. This is a problem on all social networks and is a common criticism of LinkedIn endorsements.

SkillRank™

TeamFit has a machine learning system that tries to identify these behaviors and mute them in calculating SkillRank™.

This is a loss to other members of the team, and an overall loss to the system as SkillRank becomes less confident in its judgments (SkillRank is a Bayesian system that tracks both rankings and its confidence in a ranking).

Project Records – What to Make Public

Other people are reticent about making projects public. They get the need to document their project history, and they trust the people they work with to give them honest feedback on their skills. But they don’t want this shared beyond the group of people they worked with directly.

That is fine. On TeamFit there is no requirement that a project be made public. And we are expecting some companies to require that all of their projects be kept private.

Project records can be public or project team only. The information shared can be changed to suit the view (in April we are adding a third option, an Organization setting). In the public view, the name of the company sponsoring the project, the name of client and the project description can all be edited for public consumption.

Public View of a Project

Other people are reticent about making projects public. They get the need to document their project history, and they trust the people they work with to give them honest feedback on their skills. But they don’t want this shared beyond the group of people they worked with directly.

That is fine. On TeamFit there is no requirement that a project be made public. And we are expecting some companies to require that all of their projects be kept private.

Project records can be public or project team only. The information shared can be changed to suit the view (in April we are adding a third option, an Organization setting). In the public view, the name of the company sponsoring the project, the name of client and the project description can all be edited for public consumption.

Public View of a Project

Team View of the Same Project

This is only a partial answer. People on a team may still differ on whether a project should be shared. This is something that team members will need to discuss between themselves, and when there is no agreement the default should be to privacy. And an organization may be able to override a team’s decision and keep project records private. One way we plan to handle this is to give individual team members more control over what they share publicly as well.

So what do you think?

• Do you want to keep a record of the projects you have worked on, who you have worked with and the skills you have demonstrated?

• How comfortable are you with endorsing your fellow project members’ skills, and being endorsed in return?

• How much of this information are you willing to share with the public? How should disagreements on this be resolved?

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