Smaller Teams Work - Amen to That
37signals wrote “Big business learning that smaller teams can rekindle the creative spark.”
The message: Keep teams small, give employees freedom and a sense of ownership, don’t focus too much on the competition, create a culture of experimentation, and use technology to enable remote teams.
They quoted the NY Times as saying:
By breaking huge business units into smaller, nimbler teams, companies stand a chance of rekindling the creative spark that got them rolling in the first place. After all, “small is the new big,” as Seth Godin, a prolific blogger and author, puts it in his 2006 book of that name.
I couldn’t agree more. When I was working at start-ups one product manager and one engineer could get more done in a day than an entire scrum team at one of my larger employers could do in a week. This came with the added benefit of nothing being lost in the translation and the ability to rapidly make changes until you got to where you wanted to be. I miss those days. It was very invigorating and both myself and the engineer walked away with a great sense of accomplishment and ownership.
Now go and spread the word.
