[watwut]

I had very bad experience with "everybody in charge". We oscillated between nobody makes decisions and war for power and decision making. The project was simultaneously pulled in multiple directions and there was no such thing as shared priorities. Every team member had his own.

It got hell when the company hired very smart and capable guy who turned out to be very lazy. Nobody is in charge in that case means also that it takes too long time until someone in charge finds out about the situation.

[wpietri]

Sure. You can fail either way, and neither is fun.

For a team-oriented approach to work, you really need a team. A team is a group of people that has different skills but the same goal. They're a group of people that win or lose together. They have to have the same purpose, or it won't hold together. If every team member had different priorities, then something was badly screwed up about how the team was managed.

In the case of the smart but lazy guy, that's where external-to-the-team management structures come into play. E.g., if you're using a management structure like spotify, the lazy guy's manager should have noticed issues during their weekly one-on-ones. If not, other team members would be talking to managers about the deadweight.