We’re in shape. Round is a shape. — Team shapes for rapidly growing organisations.
This post explores the experience we gained at Croomo as we defined the ideal team shape and size to gear up for a period of profound growth.
The humble beginnings of a high-performing start-up company are dynamic — full of change/disruption and with a focus on getting things done quickly. It’s an exciting and vibrant environment to be in. Rule books are thrown out the window and traditional role descriptions are left behind in the dust in favour of outcomes and market feedback.
That is… until you experience significant growth. Another four people join the team and leaders are left scratching their heads as to why their methods for project management (filled with game mechanics and playful memes) end up creating problems rather than solving them.
Larger teams carry more lines of communication, more relationships to nurture and a lack of accountability if expectations aren’t clearly established.
“Oh, I thought <that person> was doing that” or
“I’m waiting on <so-and-so> to finish that thing before I start”.
Productivity slows, project management increases and clients ultimately become frustrated when they lose sight of progress.
Over the last few years, we spent a lot of energy and focus discovering what motivates our crew, how we work effectively, and how to deliver on expectations. It’s been a journey filled with experiments, epic wins and tough conversations. We had to experiment and disprove a number of approaches before settling on the ones that worked.
By combining lessons learned with our vision to grow, we began to form teams that were empowered to master their own performance. Here’s three things we’ve learnt.
1. Establish a Boundary
In a team of six, there are 15 links between individuals. Scale that team to twelve and those links jump to 66! A business of fifty individuals will require 1225 links to be maintained. That’s a lot of emails… Enter CEO and Founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos with his famous two-pizza rule. The concept was simple: limit the team size to the number of individuals it would take to eat two pizzas. Smaller teams can maintain meaningful relationships, build trust and keep the noise of multiple communication lines focused.
Our teams consist of seven (+ or - 2) key roles to make amazing.
2. Map a Process
With the right people in place, we follow a simple yet powerful process to achieve great results. No matter how rigid or agile a team may work, following this basic flow ensures expectations are aligned and delivered on at each key step.
The seven savvy roles in each team work collaboratively within this process, iterating and improving the product as they go. Although one role may be suited to function heavily in one phase of a project, that individual is still engaged and contributes to every other step in the process. A single team structure looks something like this…
3. People Power
They’re a clever bunch that consist of the following roles:
Digital Producer
The single point of truth for a project, client and team.
Graphic Designer
Learning Experience Designer
User Experience Designer
The best of visual, behavioural and learning design that put the learner first.
3D Artist
Motion Graphics Artist
Front-End Developer
They bring content to life; packing all the punch in our production process.
As we continue to build, coach and support these teams to deliver amazing solutions to clients, we’ll likely iterate and improve over time. We also understand this team shape may not work for every occasion. Not every project requires lofty innovation and our game-changing solutions may need us to throw the rule book out.
Over time and with great consideration, we’ve crafted our teams and journeys to suit each end of the spectrum and are very aware that our clients will have varying different needs.
For now, we know our teams will satisfy the hungriest of industry/client needs.
