Dynamic Reteaming, 2nd Edition

Chapter 6. Grow-and-Split Pattern

A natural consequence of a lot of one-by-one reteaming is the grow-and-split pattern. The more people you add to existing teams, the bigger those teams get. At times with growth like this, you might experience some drag in the system. Things feel like they are taking longer than they used to because there are so many more people. Decision making might be stalled, and you might need to apply some new tactics to move forward. Then the grow-and-split pattern kicks in, to structurally split the large team into two or more smaller teams, as shown in Figure 6-1.

Figure 6-1. Grow-and-split pattern

It could also be the case that you feel that the dynamics present on the existing team need to be shifted. Maybe the team has hit a stagnation or a rigidity trap, as we learned about in Chapter 1. Things aren’t working like they used to, it feels like the energy is not there, and you decide that, in theory at least, you might want to rejigger the team energy by splitting up the team.

So how do you know when to split a team? Let’s look at some signals that tell you when your team might be too big.

Signs That You Might Want to Split Your Team

I’ve noticed four key signs that lead up to teams splitting: meetings get longer, decision making is harder, the work diverges, and it’s harder to keep track of who is actually on the team. Sometimes these indicators brew ...