Scaling Teams

Chapter 12. Scaling Your Team

So far we’ve examined five critical areas for effectively scaling teams: hiring, people management, organization, culture, and communication. We covered the major challenges each area will face during rapid growth, and provided best practices that we hope you can apply, regardless of your team’s growth rate.

Building Blocks of a Scalable Team

In this final chapter, we revisit these practices, highlighting the ones that are most critical in preparing for growth and those that are significantly easier to address while the team is small. We call these practices scaling essentials. Each one references the relevant chapter and section where you can get more detail. Since some recommendations can take a long time to implement (such as recruiting qualified people managers or clearly articulating the team’s core values), getting a head start on them could be a competitive advantage.

Next, we’ve gathered together the warning signs from previous chapters that leaders should watch out for. We suggest regularly checking for these warning signs as your organization grows, so you can take action before simmering problems boil over into a crisis. A regular slot in a leadership meeting, perhaps 10 minutes once a month, should allow you and your team to recognize these warning signs and react appropriately.

And last, we present an example of how you might apply these scaling essentials and warning signs to your specific team in the form of an actual scaling plan ...