The Operating Model for Small Engineering Teams

A small engineering team can ship remarkably well. The coordination overhead is low, decisions happen quickly, and everyone can hold the system in their head. That advantage does not persist automatically. We have watched teams of eight that moved faster than teams of eighty, and teams of eight that had somehow manufactured all the coordination problems of teams of eighty without any of the benefits. The difference is the operating model. Not the technology stack, not the deployment tooling, not