FACT: As groups gets bigger, individual effort drops.

FACT: As groups gets bigger, individual effort drops.
It's known as the Ringelmann Effect.
The backbone of of Bezo’s famous “Two Pizza Rule.”

Two Pizza Rule: If a team can’t be fed with two pizzas, it's too big.

Why big teams usually slow down:

1. Diffusion of responsibility.
“Someone else will handle it.”
We expect our team members to close the gaps. It can be a strength when others have superior skill in a certain area, but it can reduce responsibility.

2. Low visibility.
It’s easier to hide in a crowd.
Results and failures get averaged among the team... not explicitly stated.

3. Coordination loss.
Bigger groups are harder to organize.
More messages, schedules, expectations, and communication.

The kicker: Communication links
The number of unique connection points between people in a group OR any pair of people who could talk to each other.

1 person = 0 links
2 people = 1 link
3 people = 3 links
4 people = 6 links
5 people = 10 links
6 people = 15 links

A 5-person team has 10x the communication complexity of a 2-person team.

tldr; Growing the group is not a magic wand.
It regularly creates more problems than it solves.

So, what do we do about it?
• single threaded ownership (one accountable person)
• require active participation (no free-loaders)
• smaller teams + meetings
• define ‘done’ clearly (remove subjectivity)
• public commitments (ie call your shot)
• visualize progress + contributions
• tighten feedback loops

These aren't one-off improvements.
They're ongoing system maintenance.