Team Topologies

3	Team-First Thinking

Disbanding high-performing teams is worse than vandalism: it is corporate psychopathy.

—Allan Kelly, Project Myopia

Experts in organizational behavior have known for decades that modern complex systems require effective team performance: in particular, Driskell and Salas found that teams working as a cohesive unit perform far better than collections of individuals for knowledge-rich, problem-solving tasks that require high amounts of information.1 Even previously hierarchical organizations such as the US Army have adopted the team as the fundamental unit of operation. In the bestselling book Team of Teams, retired US Army General Stanley McChrystal notes that the best-performing teams “accomplish remarkable feats ...