What perspectives do your other teammates have of him? Do they share your same views, or different views?
They might shed some more light on the situation. Hypothetically: "Oh, yeah, Joe's a great guy, but you're right. He doesn't really get the 10,0000ft view of things. He mentioned to me the other week that it hasn't really been explained to him clearly, so he just focuses on the task at hand. He doesn't get all of that business stuff either, and really doesn't want to embarrass himself by admitting it."
----------
His motivations, and incentives to work, might be different than you think too. Usually you really have to get to know someone, both at work and in their personal life, to truly understand what drives them. Money isn't always everything.
Maybe he's offloading work to other teammates so he can work on his startup instead, on the job! ;)
----------
But as others have said, it's great that you're friends! :) Talk to him about it in a non-threatening way (I know that's tricky sometimes). Ask him how he feels about things.
If you do the "we're going to have a manager/employee review" thing, and it comes off negatively from his perspective, that'll probably scare him. When people are scared they can become unpredictable.
He might start working harder, he might start looking for another job, he might complain to HR and fight back, etc... That all depends on the person.
Some sort of non-confrontational approach usually works best IMHO.
The co-worker who merely fails to do his or her job has been the least of my head-aches in the various teams I've been on. The co-workers who are competent enough to be influential but incompetent enough to insist on poor design and process decisions are the one who have done the most damage to projects I've been on.
That said, you really should verify that he is the one who is incompetent. Pointing the finger at others has also been a clue that a given person isn't really a good person for a team.
The point about finding something he can do seems good. If someone knows they aren't good at difficult problems, it can work well since you can give them "grunt work" and they might be useful.
But really, the most damaging thing isn't someone's degree of incompetence but their exaggerated idea of their competence. If other people helping him is the worst effect this person has, he is low on my scale of damaging co-workers.
They might shed some more light on the situation. Hypothetically: "Oh, yeah, Joe's a great guy, but you're right. He doesn't really get the 10,0000ft view of things. He mentioned to me the other week that it hasn't really been explained to him clearly, so he just focuses on the task at hand. He doesn't get all of that business stuff either, and really doesn't want to embarrass himself by admitting it."
----------
His motivations, and incentives to work, might be different than you think too. Usually you really have to get to know someone, both at work and in their personal life, to truly understand what drives them. Money isn't always everything.
Maybe he's offloading work to other teammates so he can work on his startup instead, on the job! ;)
----------
But as others have said, it's great that you're friends! :) Talk to him about it in a non-threatening way (I know that's tricky sometimes). Ask him how he feels about things.
If you do the "we're going to have a manager/employee review" thing, and it comes off negatively from his perspective, that'll probably scare him. When people are scared they can become unpredictable.
He might start working harder, he might start looking for another job, he might complain to HR and fight back, etc... That all depends on the person.
Some sort of non-confrontational approach usually works best IMHO.
----------
Best of luck to you!