MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Get Things Done With Smaller Teams

An important executive goal in most large companies is to improve efficiency and effectiveness. With top-line revenue growth elusive in most markets, a key way to increase returns to shareholders is to boost the bottom line — and that means stepping up productivity. These gains need to come from improving the processes that run the company as well as those that change it.

Smaller teams move faster, iterate at a higher frequency, and innovate more for the company. There are endless examples of small teams achieving amazing things. When Facebook purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion, the company’s 32 engineers had created a platform that was used by 450 million users. The Volkswagen Golf GTI, one of the most famous hot hatchbacks in history, was created by a team of eight. Many of the largest technology companies created their first successful products with teams of fewer than 10 people.