Question : Do you agree that very technical people (e.g. advanced degrees in computer science, analytics, artificial intelligence), are different from other workers? What are some ways to better integrate different types of people into project teams?

Case study: Eric Schmidt, after a successful career at Sun Microsystems, took over struggling Novell, Inc., and helped turn it around within two years. Four years later he became the CEO of Google. One of the keys to his success is his ability to manage the technical wizards who develop the sophisticated systems, hardware, and software that are the backbone of electronically driven companies. He uses the term geek (and he can, since he is one, with a Ph.D. in computer science) to describe this group of technologists who rule the cyberworld. Schmidt has some interesting ideas about assigning geeks to projects. He believes that putting geeks together in project teams with other geeks creates productive peer pressure. Geeks care a great deal about how other geeks perceive them. They are good at judging the quality of technical work and are quick to praise as well as criticize each others work. Some geeks can be unbearably arrogant, but Schmidt claims that having them work together on projects is the best way to control themby letting them control each other. At the same time, Schmidt argues that too many geeks spoil the soup. By this he means that when there are too many geeks on a development team, there is a tendency for intense technical navel gazing. Members lose sight of deadlines, and delays are inevitable. To combat this tendency, he recommends using geeks only in small groups. He urges breaking up large projects into smaller, more manageable projects so that small page 280 teams of geeks can be assigned to them. This keeps the project on time and makes the teams responsible to each other.