Conway's Law: Why Your Products Mirror Your Org Chart
Conway's law: systems copy the communication structure of the teams that build them. The 1968 wording, what 4 studies found, and how to use it.
Team Productivity & Collaboration
How teams protect focus, collaborate asynchronously and deliver outcomes.
Handoffs, dependencies and cross-functional work
What makes teams effective
Psychological Safety in Teams: What Amy Edmondson's Research Found
Psychological safety is a team's shared belief that speaking up is safe. What Edmondson's 1999 study, a later meta-analysis and the open questions show.
Social Loafing: Why People Do Less in Groups and How to Prevent It
Social loafing is the drop in effort when work is pooled. What research since the 1880s found, why it happens, and 3 evidence-based ways to prevent it.
What Makes a Team Effective? What Decades of Research Show
What makes a team effective? Decades of research point less to star talent than to how a team is set up and works together. Here is the evidence.
Trust, conflict and team-building
15 Team-Building Activities That Aren't a Waste of Time
15 team building activities sorted by purpose, with time, group size and remote options. Goal and role work has the best evidence; skip forced fun.
Outcomes, team health checks and metrics
Team Metrics That Backfire: Goodhart's Law at Work
Goodhart's law says a measure stops measuring well once it becomes a target. Where it came from, a documented bank case, and 5 safeguards for team metrics.
Forming, sizing and scaling teams
What Is the Ideal Team Size? What the Research Says
There is no single ideal team size: a 2023 review of 208 team results found no overall link. Here is when size matters more, when it matters less, and why.
Tuckman's Stages of Team Development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing
Forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning: where Tuckman's 1965 stages of team development came from, and how to use them at work.
Roles, responsibilities and ownership
The RACI Matrix Explained: A Step-by-Step Guide With Examples
A RACI matrix shows who does, owns, advises on and hears about each task. How to build one in 6 steps, with examples and what the evidence says.