One thing I didn’t understand during my job hunt was how much organizational size and maturity matter for a person’s fit on their new team. Which is funny, considering how much I care about organizational theory and what different organization structures mean about scalability. But, as I geared up to hire backfill for my team, I realized how much I would be setting someone up to fail if they weren’t a good fit in these ways. Someone might be exactly the right personality to fit onto the team, but if the type of change available to them doesn’t suit their proclivities, they’ll feel unsupported and/or stymied in having an impact. There are two vectors here I think are worth talking about, and a few different “levels” within each.
Rule of Threes
There is a pattern in organizational theory (I haven’t found one good catch-all for different things here about how things change at different scales. I might write up more at some point), but in short, your organizational approach changes dramatically each time your size shifts by x3, with the in between being wishy-washy.
3-15
Everyone is doing everything, and talking to each other constantly. You have nuance in how you view each of your team members. No one has to specialize. Everyone has to be willing to do the work. Personalities are king. How much time is spent on determining working methods is done on-the-fly.
50-150
Groups share resources and protect each other. There is specialization but still high visibility into each other’s work rather than systems in place for coordination. People feel highly connected to each other because still within Dunbar’s number, often still when also accounting for life outside of work, and so trust still comes naturally. Working methods emerge as best practice and are highly malleable.
500-1500
Trust shifts to systems and team-as-unit, rather than between individuals, while personal connections are maintained within teams. Cross-team integration exercises start to feel empty without explicit expectations laid. Specialization continues, including adding people tasked with coordination and communication. Working methods are externalized and set as explicit expectations.
5000+
Cross-team collaboration is based on processes rather than relationships. Trust occurs at discipline-wide units. Working methods are rigid and difficult to alter.
Organizational maturity
I have my own thoughts here, but I’m trying to fit them into the STARS model I learned about in The First 90 Days so I’m utilizing a paved path rather than paving one for myself.
STartup
Nearly everything is treated as an N of 1. Prototyping and lots of lateral thinking. Paving paths, but not looking for existing paved paths.
Turnaround
Collective agreement that paved paths are wrong, or need to be paved collectively. Politics are easy because everyone agrees there’s an issue. Scaling up or down in size can hit this in addition to organizational issues.
Accelerated Growth
A solid baseline exists, but is facing strains as the company grows. Systems need to be put in place or changed. Paved paths need to be reiterated or mildly tweaked.
Realignment
Paved paths are wrong, but there isn’t broad agreement on root cause or even that there’s a problem. Scaling up or down in size can hit this in addition to organizational issues.
Sustaining Success
Things are in a good state and mostly just need to be maintained. Small tweaks, spreading best practices, etc.
What’s your sweet spot?
Having a story about your sweet spot will help hiring managers and you know if you’re a good fit for a role, at a company.
My sizes are 3-15 and 500-1500 because of the balance I like to have of how much communication is happening versus time on work. I struggle with 50-150 because I want more process than that size group is willing to tolerate, but people also start to feel like my doing All The Things is no longer appropriate.
My maturity stages are turnaround and accelerated growth. I like building reusable things and seeing them reused, and I get bored when everything is structurally figured out. I’m currently working on getting better at realignment, which has more to do with politics than I’ve historically been interested in.
How about you?
Instagram Engineering
Shopify Engineering