Thoughts about team size
I recently saw a LinkedIn post about team size:
In many orgs, Amazon’s 2-pizza team approach is a poor idea, leading to lots of delays from slow handoffs between small teams.
I will take a 16-person, full-stack, balanced team (balanced with the right mix of product, UX, development skills) any day over several two-pizza teams that collaborate poorly.
In reality, however, there’s more to “two pizza” teams than having small teams. And, it’s likely that organizations that struggle with them are missing several key points.
Here’s a few thoughts about team size including why small teams are (potentially) more productive; the key characteristics of productive teams; and how to identify issues. I’ll start by describing modern thinking about team size that supersedes the two pizza team concept.