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TEAM SIZE

WHAT IS A TEAM ?

A team comprises a group of people linked in a common purpose.


Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity
and have many interdependent subtasks.
A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team.
Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy
through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her
strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.
TEAM SIZE

What’s the Right Size of a Team?


When the team grows, communication complexity multiply, and behaviour such
as social loafing may surface.
For decades, researchers have noted that mere changes in team size can
change work-group processes and resulting performance.
By studying 238 workers within 26 teams, ranging from three to 20 members
in size, Mueller’s research replicates the general assertion that individuals in
larger teams do perform worse.
Jeff Sutherland shared some statistics in favor of smaller teams where, the
cost per function point of a team of size 7 was $566 and that of a team of size
14 was $2970.
IS YOUR TEAM TOO BIG?
TOO SMALL?
When it comes to athletics, sports teams have a
specific number of team players: A basketball team
needs five, baseball nine, and soccer 11. But when it
comes to the  workplace, where teamwork is
increasingly widespread throughout complex and
expanding organizations, there is no hard-and-fast
rule to determine the optimal number to have on
each team.
The most productive team have 4-6 team members,
as suggested in a recent article on "How to Build a
Great Team" in Fortune magazine?
EACH PERSON COUNTS

When it comes to team size, each person counts. "When you have two people, is
that a team or a dyad? With three, you suddenly have the opportunity to have
power battles, two to one.
Ringelmann's famous study on pulling a rope -- often called the Ringelmann effect
-- analyzed people alone and in groups as they pulled on a rope. Ringelmann then
measured the pull force. As he added more and more people to the rope,
Ringelmann discovered that the total force generated by the group rose, but the
average force exerted by each group member declined, thereby discrediting the
theory that a group team effort results in increased effort.
THE NUMBER SIX

According to Wittenberg, while the research on optimal team numbers is "not


conclusive, it does tend to fall into the five to 12 range, though some say five to
nine is best, and the number six has come up a few times."
In the work world, it has been "reinforced that five or six is the right number
(on a team). But, I think it depends on the task."
But is there an optimal team size? Mueller has concluded, again, that it depends
on the task. "If you have a group of janitors cleaning a stadium, there is no limit
to that team; 30 will clean faster than five." But, if companies are dealing with
coordination tasks and motivational issues, and you ask, 'What is your team size
and what is optimal?' that correlates to a team of six.
DIVERSITY: BAD FOR
COHESION?

Klein's recent research has looked at another confusing area when it comes to
teams -- the value of diversity. Various theories suggest that diversity
represented by gender, race and age leads to conflict and poor social
integration -- while various other studies suggest just the opposite. "The
general assumption is that people like people who are similar to themselves, so
there is a theory to suggest that a lot of diversity is bad for cohesion," says
Klein. "But there is also a theory that says diversity is great, that it creates
more ideas, more perspectives and more creativity for better solutions."
Imagine that you have just been "given" a software development group
consisting of 100 developers. Now imagine that you are given a really important
project to work on. Which would be better:

a) Get all 100 people working on the project (with good project management,
leadership etc.), or...

b) Find the 7 strongest people in the group who are willing to work on the
project (in other words, the seven strongest people that are actually
interested in the project) and get them working on the project, fire the rest
of them, and spend the savings on giving the 7 people the absolute best tools
and environment they need and want, and spending the rest to make them
happy/comfortable.

Personally, despite the severity of scenario b), I would definitely bet on it and
not on scenario a).
TEAM PERFORMANCE
AND TEAM SIZE
It would be an understatement to say that deciding on the size of a team is an
exact science!
It is certainly a topic where there are a lot of divergent views.
The negatives of the individual are reduced somewhat by the addition of another
individual.
Pairs keep each other grounded and there are no core and peripheral information
flows – there are only two people. However, parochialism and path dependency are
still factors. The core aim of a pair should be to encourage diversity and novelty
in each individual.
Scrum recommends the team size to be 7 plus/minus 2. Hence the team can
vary between 5 and 9
According to Cognitive Edge, the human brain has co-evolved with social
conditions and there is a natural limit on the number of social relationships a
person can maintain. The study could easily be labeled as the rule of 5,15 and
150. 5 is linked to the natural limits of short term memory, 15 is the natural
level of deep trust and 150 is the number of identities that a person can
maintain in his head.
Another study related to the Parkinson’s Law, suggested that any team size
below 20 can work except 8. Above 20 there is a natural digression into
subgroups and no consensus can be formed. With 8, people usually find
themselves in deadlock situations over decisions.
CONTD…

As groups get larger, the quality of results increases with intellectual cross-
pollination. But group negatives prevent breakout:
a) Symptoms of group think increase
b) The percentage of individual performance declines
c) Groups of three to five elicit much more conformity than just one or two
d) Evaluation apprehension increases
e) Core and peripheral information flows exclude some people
f) Political strategies increase
In conclusion, a tactical combination of team structures increases creative
output.
FINDINGS ON TEAM SIZE

A study released in 2005 by Quantitative Software Management (QSM) on


software projects showed that, assigning a large team on software projects
does not necessarily result in any significant shortening of the project time. It
can actually result in more defects!
 
Research on top management teams, by Katzenbach and Smith, shows that these
teams are far more difficult to form. However, they fare better as real teams
when they are small.
 
  
With regard to global, virtual teams, team size is not a major issue
 
In Start-up businesses the initial team, comprising the founders / ownership
team, is usually small. By and large, such teams seem to have no more than three
people.
 
In a cross functional project team, the size of the team is dictated by the
functions that have to be represented. So the team size varies by task.
TOP MANAGEMENT TEAM
SIZE
Adopting an information-processing perspective and drawing on work in social
psychology, one study examined the effects of top management team size on
firm performance in different environments. Data from 47 organizations
revealed that firms with large teams performed better and firms with
dominant CEOs performed worse in a turbulent environment than in a stable
one.
In addition, the association between team size, and firm performance, is
significant in an environment that allows top managers high discretion in making
strategic choices but is not significant in a low-discretion environment.
HOW DOES TEAM SIZE
AFFECT TEAM SUCCESS?

Many managers and project leaders can attest that team size has a significant
impact on whether a team will succeed or fail at achieving a goal.
Teams with fewer members are more likely to develop strong cohesive bonds that
enable them to work cooperatively together and reduces chances of social loafing,
but smaller teams often lack the available resources to efficiently achieve a goal
Larger teams have the benefit of utilizing a diverse range of strengths and skills
and can brainstorm more effectively to identify a broader scope of problems and
solutions. However, larger teams usually cannot effectively make reasonable
decisions and a phenomenon called groupthink, which is the tendency for individual
members to suppress dissent in the interest of group harmony, is more prevalent.
FACTORS DETERMINING TEAM
SIZE

Maturity of your business team.

Available labor pool

Your marketing activities

Proximity

Task type
PROXIMITY

The important thing to consider is the extent to which team members will be
working in close proximity to one another. If a team is expected to work
closely with one another, both in proximity and degree of interaction, smaller
team sizes are more effective.
However, when teams are expected to work more independently, team size
becomes less problematic as long as team members are diverse in terms of
skills and abilities.
TYPE OF TASK INVOLVED

Task Unity
When a task cannot be divided into smaller subtasks, team size greatly
influences successful performance.
When a team’s success depends on the additive contributions of all members,
the greater number of teammates available increases team performance.
However, when a team is too large, a negative ceiling effect emerges because
there are too many people attempting to complete a single task, thus limiting
team performance.
Alternatively, when individual success at each phase of a task is required, it is
best to have fewer members because, as team size increases, the chance of
having more incapable members increases.
CONTD…

Task Subdivision
When tasks can be divided among members, there is a positive increase on
team performance.
When more members are available to contribute resources, a team is able to
divide a task into more subtasks, which decreases the time necessary to
complete a task.
However, the more subtasks, the harder it is for team members to combine
individual results into a collective whole, thus jeopardizing successful team
performance
Speed Camera Teamwork
 
This allegedly true story, supposedly leaked by the Australian
Department of Transport, concerns four Australian young men
and a mobile speed camera police van. Three of the four lads
engaged the speed camera operators in conversation about the
camera equipment, and the number of cars caught, etc., while the
fourth unscrewed the van's front registration plate. Bidding the
police farewell, the lads returned home, screwed the
registration plate to their own car and proceeded to complete 17
very fast round trips through the speed camera's radar. The
traffic penalties department subsequently issued 17 speeding
tickets to itself.
 
PUTTING IT ALL
TOGETHER

Proximity

High Proximity: teams work in the same room or on the same floor and interact at
least 60% of the time (2-7 members)

Medium Proximity: teams work in the same office building and interact between
30% and 60% of the time (7-12 members)

Low Proximity: teams work virtually, remotely, or on different worksites and


interact less than 30% of the time (12+ members)
CONTD…

Task Characteristics

Unified Task with Additive Qualities: a team’s task cannot be divided into
subtasks, and the task relies on the additive contributions of each team
member (5-10 members)

Unified Task with Individualistic Qualities: a team’s task cannot be divided


into subtasks, and the task relies on the individual success of each team
member (3-7 members)

Divisible Task: a team’s task can easily be divided into subtasks for each
member to work on individually (10-15 members)
 
THE START UPS

effort

Team size

Note- the special characteristic of start up team is their proximity and high
frequency decision making. For such teams an inverted u-shape relationship
between effort and team size exists with max. effort in teams of 3 members.
THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE STORY
Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about
who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a
race. The tortoise and hare both agreed on a route and
started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for
some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise,
he thought he'd sit under a tree for some time and relax
before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon
fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon
finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The
hare woke up and realised that he'd lost the race.

The moral of the story is that slow and steady wins the race.
This is the version of the story that we've all grown up with.
The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-
searching. He realized that he'd lost the race only because he had
been overconfident, careless and lax. This time, the hare went all
out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by
several miles.
The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realised that
there's no way he can beat the hare in a race the way it was
currently formatted. He thought for a while, and then
challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different
route. The hare agreed. The tortoise and hare started off. In
keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast,
the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad
river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other
side of the river.

The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the
tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the
opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.
The tortoise and hare, by this time, had become pretty good
friends and they did some thinking together. Both realised that
the last race could have been run much better. So the tortoise
and hare decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team
this time.

They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till
the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with
the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried
the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. Both
the tortoise and hare felt a greater sense of satisfaction than
they'd felt earlier.
Moral of the story is
"Understanding the reasons why individuals perform better than
others may be one key to implementing successful team
management tactics in organizations. In addition, "individual
performance losses are less about coordination activities and more
about individuals on project teams, thus indicating that There is no
hard and fast rule to an optimal team size it depends on team
members, their coordination and type of task.

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