by Erran Carmel & Barbara J. Bird
American University, USA

completed February 1996

to appear in the Journal of High Technology Management Research in early 1997

Abstract

Writers in diverse fields have recognized the advantages of small teams. The common justification is, not that a small team is so advantageous, in and of itself, but that the alternative-- a large team-- is so disadvantageous, primarily because of the burden of maintaining n*(n-1)/2 communication links between the n team members.

We established the following rule derived from the literature-- a team of ten or more is a violation of "small is beautiful."

We examined data from 74 product development teams in a cross section of packaged software companies.

Findings: Using the rule, we found that most teams in these firms were small with a median of five members. Only 15% of the firms violated the "small is beautiful" rule, and only when the number of employees in the firm neared or exceeded 100.

Three factors were identified to explain why the teams remained small: there was a proactive policy about small teams, the release was relatively minor, and teams were permanent rather than ad hoc.

Four factors were identified to explain why those teams that violated the "small is beautiful" rule grew beyond small: product size and complexity, firm age and ossification, non-desktop roots of the software products, and ad hoc teams rather than permanent teams.

Many brief case studies illustrate our findings.

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Last update: August 23, 1996 By Erran Carmel