A team’s size can be measured by how complicated it is to order lunch for the team. If two pizzas are enough for the team, it’s a good size. You can read about this pizza comparison with team sizes in different books, e.g. Mike Cohn’s book “Succeeding with Agile Software Development”. But pizzas, as well as people come in different sizes. Some people eat a lot of pizza while some eat less. So what is a good team size? Is it even possible to put a number on it? What signs should you look for that indicates that the team is too big?

Large teams can have some benefits, like more members with more versatile knowledge, experience, and approaches, than in smaller teams. There is less risk of losing a person with important skills for the team in larger teams. The members can have opportunities to specialize in a particular technology or knowledge when they work in larger teams. Smaller teams, on the other hand, have even more benefits. Here are five benefits of smaller teams:

1. With smaller teams comes greater responsibility and it is rarely ”someone else who will pick up the slack”. Each person’s contribution becomes more visible and meaningful in smaller teams, which is more satisfactory for the team members. This phenomenon when people exert less effort when they believe there are others who will do the work is sometimes called ”social loafing”. It was first demonstrated in the 1920s when psychologist Max Ringelmann measured the pressure of individuals and teams pulling on a rope. Groups with fewer members exhibited much higher average pressure and Max Ringelmann was able to show that individual efforts are inversely related to the size of the team by this experiment.

2. Constructive work is usually based on trust, mutual responsibility, and cohesion in the team. This is more likely to occur in smaller teams. When the team is too big they will have difficulty in establishing these feelings and thus harder to perform constructive work.

3. Smaller teams spend less time coordinating activities with their team members. As a simple example, it’s harder to plan a meeting in a larger team than in a smaller team.

4. In smaller teams, it is difficult to fade into the background. With smaller teams, there is normally higher participation in group activities and discussions. In large teams, it is usually only certain members of the team who speak, which inhibits the entire team’s performance. This might prevent the group of individuals from becoming a cohesive, high-performing team.

5. In smaller teams, it is likely that the team members don’t have fixed roles. This leads to the amount of learning increases. In larger teams, it is easier for members to specialize and take on a certain role. If this role is not needed for a while in the team, the person becomes redundant.

Please tell me what benefits you see with larger and smaller teams. And do not forget to share the post to find out what your network thinks is a good team size.