Under reciprocal interdependence, person A's output becomes person B's input and vice versa. It is the highest form of interdependence. Every member is dependent on others at all levels - not just in a simple linear fashion as in sequential interdependence. Generally, team members have different roles and often are specialists with different expertise; they perform different parts of the task in a flexible order. Thus, team performance requires coordination among members (Saavedra, Early & Van Dyne 1993, p. 63). For example, in a surgical team the anaesthetist and the surgeon must watch what the other is doing, monitor the condition of the patient and make continual adjustments to how they proceed with the operation.

When software developers are writing code, each person must have a high degree of familiarity with what is being done to other pieces of the program, otherwise the likelihood of bugs increases significantly.