what is the ‘right’ size for teams? recently an article in forbes quoted 4.6 people. but this article from wharton advises to look at the task the team has to accomplish, what skills & composition are needed & THEN consider size. although they certainly quote enough studies that point to 5-6 people being the ‘right’ number.

the article should just stop there. explore this size idea and stop. but it doesn’t. it tries to touch on what you need to do for a good team, including how diversity figures into all this. getting the team together to discuss how things will work, what their values are and planning processes is very briefly mentioned and then out of left field comes:

When it comes to creating a successful team, “teams that rely solely on electronic communication are less successful than those that understand why communication in person is important,” says Wittenberg. “Email is a terrible medium… . It doesn’t relate sarcasm or emotion very well, and misunderstandings can arise. There is something very important and very different about talking to someone face-to-face.”

sigh. yes, we know email communication can cause issues but saying teams relying solely on electronic communication are less successful than f2f teams is a sweeping statement (made w/o a reference). i’m def unimpressed by this article.