Instead of thinking, what is faster for completion, think, what is less emotionally costly (we are biological creatures after all) for the TEAM not just for YOU. And you will note that breaking work into smaller chunks of work has a longer completion date, with the lowest number of hours spent.
Okay, let’s start over from where all started!
Okay, doing it myself sounds so much easier and within level of comfort! But having someone else to do saves a lot of time. Have someone else to do, and you will be worried about how to get things done? Solution: Find the right person/company. If not, do it yourself – so sorry!
Okay, after a lot of tries lets say you found a good person/company to work with. You are already working with them. They are making progress – yippeee!! They ENSURE that the progress is imminent. The continuous reminder of having to do the job is off your chest – literally. Instead they ensure you are always on tack. The downside? you need to talk to them nicely ALL the time and promote team work. You will learn to work with people, to simply put. Just don’t make the mistake of switching to a different person after having FOUND someone. Make the decision before giving the task to them. Instead of thinking, what is faster for completion, think, what is less emotionally costly (we are biological creatures after all) for both them and us (together).
And you will note that breaking work into chunks of work has a longer completion date, but a short number of hours spent! Yes, if you add up all the number of total hours taken taken to complete the project, it has taken very less number of hours. So you just have to pay for the hours your team worked right? Neat! Great budget saving. However, do you ALSO expect a shorter completion date — too bad, you are unscientific, to simply put, just like my previous employer – lol.
To build strength, add two or more tasks taking equal durations together without gaps. Start with two and if you fail half way on the second one – its okay. And Congratulations you just found how to build strength while still keeping up your endurance.
So, this is what I call the Endurance/Strength Ratio. Let’s better understand this from the Project Management/Team perspective.
When two people work together, they could be considered as a single different person altogether. So its not you anymore. Its not that person anymore. Think of it as a whole new person. A team. A company. In Software development, executing/completing a task takes a lot of thinking (very obvious and funny, I know 
), however, the point is, the way how a team thinks could be completely different from the way how each and every person thinks in the team. So, I think, there should be a balance maker doing the job of monitoring and balancing this getting the most out of your team ALL the time. (In a two person team it is just YOU). This is a Key role. As important as coding. A coder is a leaf in a tree, a project manager is the trunk of the tree taking all the weight and pressures from the individual leaves.
If you are keeping your team’s performance high, think of it as holding a big bucket of water high – yes, there is a lot of potential energy involved, for long periods of time. There is another fact here, to keep the water from spilling out. Although the chances are less, it is possible that you may spill water from the bucket itself – You cannot pour back spilled water when you are busy lifting it over your shoulders already – Can you? So, more importantly, as a project manager (and a side architect between projects, to keep up with my coding experience from a developer perspective, for better or worse), I tend to ensure that nothing is lost. If I can’t stand for any longer, I keep the bucket of water down, just for some time. Take the rest the team needs to get the project back on track.
So the lower the ratio, the faster you get things done, with a shorter completion date.
I work in two teams. My first team has a ratio of 0.86. We get things done 14% faster. And my other team has 1.41 (too bad, the second needs more strength development, on the bright side, the team has a greater endurance).
So what is your Team’s current Endurance/Strength Ratio in Software/Web Design/Development?
