Clay Shirky wrote a piece back in December of 2002 that should be of interest to anyone working as part of a team:
First, the bad news. Working in groups is not like baking a pie — there is no recipe for getting it right every time. Groups are fantastically complex entities, and groups will sometimes fail no matter what you do.
The good news is that there are a number of things you can do to improve the odds of success. The literature is too large to summarize in any comprehensive way, but here are a dozen things I think I know about working in groups that may help you get more out of group work while you are here. Some of them are things you can do to prepare for group work, some of them are things the group can do together at the outset, and some of them are ongoing habits.
They are:
1. Embrace ego.
2. Use the group for having ideas, not just ratifying them.
3. Beware premature optimization.
4. Structure is not tyranny.
5. Decide how to decide.
6. Settle on social software.
7. Get it in writing.
8. Match roles and goals.
9. Talk about the relationship.
10. Accept inequality.
11. There is no substitute for time.
12. Have a drink. You’ve earned it.
Go read the whole thing.