If you’ve ever had the opportunity of working for both a large and small organization throughout your career, you may have been shocked by how different the two teams operate.
While this isn’t true for all organizations, generally speaking, smaller teams tend to be able to hire faster, make decisions faster, release features faster, and pivot faster. They tend to be flatter and individuals generally have the freedom to do the things they think need to be done, when they need to be done. Most of the team tends to understand the strategic vision and larger context.
Large teams tend to be the opposite. It takes a long time and lots of meetings to get a consensus. They tend to be top-down. The people on the ground tend to have less control over what they are able to do. And the people on the ground down always have insight into larger contexts or decisions that will eventually make it down to their level.
Generally speaking, quickly adding more people to a team does not automatically increase productivity. In fact, the opposite is true. Scaling without a lot of planning tends to have the opposite effect, and may actually slow you do dramatically.
This week, Derek and Jeremy discuss the differences between large and small teams. They offer some insights into what teams might want to look out for as they grow.
Topics:
• 03:48 – Kevin Smith managed to make Clerks with a tiny team
• 08:11 – The larger the team the more lines of communication
• 09:06 – Change management is harder for larger teams
• 11:35 – A lot of this depends on the leadership
• 14:30 – How quickly can your team make decisions?
• 14:53 – It feels natural to give larger teams more priorities
• 19:03 – The Three-legged Stool is easier to maintain on smaller teams
• 24:51 – Larger teams tend to segregate departments
• 29:00 – Middle Managers have a large role to play in larger organizations
• 29:33 – The Large Team’s Embarrassment Paradox
Helpful Links:
• Lines Of Communication and Team Size: Applying Brooks’ Law
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