Two Pizza Teams and why we love it
Everyone likes Pizza right? Well ok, most people like Pizza, and if you’re a Teenage Ninja Turtle your favourite Pizza will be something meat heavy.
I’ll make a few references to my favourite 80’s cartoons. So the idea that people should form team sizes based on only being able to consume two pizzas might sound strange, but this is exactly what other organisations have been doing for a long time — Amazon in particular call it 2PT. It’s essentially the ultimate divisional organisation structure that works to drive accountability and autonomy. Small teams have this ability to decide on their course changes, own the decision and then be held accountable when things go wrong or well.
In our Engineering team we have started with the experimentation phase of organising into small Two-Pizza Teams (2PT) to help drive our products in cross functional way. This means that right now we are focussed on the team size, keeping it around 6–7 people, allowing nimbleness of a Thundercat or Ulysses 31 to be able to adapt, course correct, own the delivery and decision making along with the Product Manager.
Remember this isn’t just about team size but more about the empowerment that occurs within a small team that has ownership over how they implement and deliver, pretty much how the Turtles operated. Over time we will re-visit what else the Pizza team could own but we know this shape and organisational pattern is highly scalable to allow multiple 2PT’s….
The question you might be asking is what Pizza do we feed our Engineers on our Pizza Friday? Judging by the number of Pizza’s we consume, they prefer anything with Beer. :)
