Smaller Teams = Better Results: The Two-Pizza Rule

The Two-Pizza Rule: Why small teams lead to big success

Jeff Bezos didn’t just leverage the basic insight of Gall’s Law to develop what has become Amazon’s fastest-growing internal unit — he is also responsible for popularizing one of his own tech rules.

In early 2002, Bezos decided that to reduce communication overhead and improve productivity, all of Amazon would be re-organized into so-called “two-pizza teams” — squads small enough that just two pizzas would be enough to fully feed them when working late in the office.

While this has also been interpreted as a rule for meetings — either capping the maximum size of meetings at Amazon or capping the size of meetings that Bezos himself will attend — the original formulation was an edict about team size.

WHY TWO-PIZZA TEAMS GAVE AMAZON A STRATEGIC ADVANTAGE

For analyst Benedict Evans, the two-pizza rule has been a crucial structural advantage for Amazon.

The root of the two-pizza team idea was Bezos’ attitude toward both centralization and communication. Bezos wanted Amazon to remain nimble even as it grew, and that started with encouraging independent decision-making rather than an over-reliance on hierarchy.

And Bezos hated the overhead created by excess communication. In “The Everything Store,” Brad Stone quotes Bezos as saying that “communication is a sign of dysfunction. It means people aren’t working together in a close, organic way. We should be trying to figure out a way for teams to communicate less with each other, not more.”

Source: Getty Images

The main advantage this conferred upon Amazon was simple: smaller and independent teams meant the ability to spin up new teams much faster, giving Amazon the power to scale more cheaply, explore new ideas easily, and ultimately ship more products to customers.

While many of the new initiatives spearheaded by these small teams have failed, some — like Prime, Kindle, and AWS — have become core businesses for Amazon.

For Bezos, it comes back to the idea of building a corporate structure that can generate the maximum amount of innovation for customers. Big, centralized teams maintain companies. Small, autonomous teams find new ideas.

“We have the good fortune of a large, inventive team and a patient, pioneering, customer-obsessed culture — great innovations, large and small, are happening every day on behalf of customers, and at all levels throughout the company,” he wrote in his 2013 shareholder letter. “[Decentralized] distribution of invention throughout the company — not limited to the company’s senior leaders — is the only way to get robust, high-throughput innovation.”

In other words, as Benedict Evans writes, “you don’t (in theory) need to fly to Seattle and schedule a bunch of meetings to get people to implement support for launching make-up in Italy, or persuade anyone to add things to their roadmap.”

There is a machine, and then there is a machine to build the machine, says Evans. And Amazon’s two-pizza rule ensures that the company, aside from being a ubiquitous tech leviathan, can operate a machine to build more Amazons.

SPOTIFY’S SQUADS COMBINE AUTONOMY WITH RESPONSIBILITY

The concept of small, autonomous teams has become extremely popular in the tech world over the years, and some of the biggest and most successful companies have adopted similar ideas to the two-pizza rule to help make their people more efficient and productive.

Spotify is one example of a company that abides by the smaller-is-better rule when it comes to organizational structure.

Source: Getty

The music streaming app organizes teams into 8-person squads, with the function of each squad determined autonomously, rather than being directed from above. Each squad functions as a mini-startup inside Spotify: cross-functional, self-sufficient, and sharing the same geographical location.

One unusual feature of Spotify’s squads is the lack of a designated leader or manager, with each squad member equally responsible for results. In the vein of autonomous operations, any leader of these squads emerges organically and informally. The company uses the squad structure to encourage greater innovation, disruptive thinking, and complete accountability, without the burden of excessive control.

Squads with similar functions across the organization are then grouped under tribes, chapters, and guilds. While tribes act as incubators and provide support for the development of squads, chapters connect employees based on specific skill sets such as web development and quality assurance. Guilds are a way to encourage knowledge sharing across the organization, irrespective of squad, function, or location.

This organizational structure is designed to support a bottom-up approach at Spotify. For example, best practices at the music streaming company only emerge after enough squads have adopted them.

Furthermore, by keeping teams highly autonomous, the structure “lowers the cost of failure” through ensuring that “failure has a ‘limited blast radius’ and affects only part of the user experience,” according to Michael Mankins and Eric Garton of the Harvard Business Review.

In the vein of Bezos’ idea of excessive communication being wasteful, Spotify looks to make communication more efficient by seating squads, guilds, and tribes that need to coordinate closer to each other.

NOT EVERYONE IS SATISFIED WITH TWO PIZZAS

According to organizational psychologist J. Richard Hackman, the more interconnections you have between people, the slower your decision-making and the higher the management costs for the organization.

As you add people to an organization, the number of communication links increases exponentially.

“The cost of coordinating, communicating, and relating with each other snowballs to such a degree that it lowers individual and team productivity,” writes blogger Janet Choi. Two-pizza teams solve this inherent scaling problem by artificially capping the number of links.

Despite the organizational clarity derived from the two-pizza team, not everyone at Amazon and in the wider tech world is a fan of the rule.

Some former Amazon employees and others believe the strategy was counterproductive, and some think that building products using two-pizza teams creates a disconnected user experience.

According to Brad Stone, the concept of two-pizza teams was unevenly applied throughout the Amazon. It took root most of all in engineering, while the idea barely touched the finance and legal departments.

Additionally, each team had to set up its own “fitness function” — some kind of quantitative, linear equation that could be used to judge whether that team succeeded or failed in its mission. For a marketing team, that might be the average email blast open rate multiplied by ensuing order value.

Yet, Stone writes, making some teams define this function for themselves was like “asking a condemned man to decide how he’d like to be executed.” For others, it was merely ineffective.

Kim Rachmeler, former VP at Amazon, said, “Being a two-pizza team was not exactly liberating. […] It was actually kind of a pain in the a**. It did not help you get your job done and consequently the vast majority of engineers and teams flipped the bit on it.”

Small, disconnected teams run the risk of producing disjointed products that don’t contribute to a seamless experience, according to product management consultant Matt LeMay.

For LeMay, the most important aspect of a product for a customer is not the individual features of a product, but how those features come together to deliver a cohesive experience.

Given the vast number of products that Amazon has put out over the years, and how cluttered many of its website’s menus can seem, it’s fair to say that Amazon’s drive for two-pizza teams has not been without its drawbacks.

TAKEAWAY

Jeff Bezos wanted small, autonomous teams that could be “independently set loose on Amazon’s biggest problems,” as Brad Stone writes. These teams wouldn’t have to waste cycles communicating with other teams, and they would each have all the resources and people necessary to launch new products. The result, Bezos thought, would be more creative offerings and faster results for customers.

Though not without its detractors, Bezos’ idea that over-communication between teams risks stoking inefficiencies is now commonly implemented at companies like Google and Spotify.

source: CBinsights

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As for personal experience, I agree that the smaller team, in general, will produce a better product. The smallest team is ONE, and since I had the experience of developing TeleMagic completely alone for the first several years of its existence, and with only one other developer taking over for the next several years, there is no question in my mind that the smaller the team, the better the product. (Michael McCafferty)

Six secrets of highly motivated people

Here's the quick story, for details, scroll down:

Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time.

Surround yourself with motivated people.

Celebrate Your Successes.

Be Compassionate with Your Failures.

Design Your Environment to Be Energizing.

Be Ruthless About Saying No.

1. Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

Highly motivated people know that the currency of motivation is energy.

Most of the productivity and habit building advice you hear offers tips and tricks for better time management. With promises of making you more efficient in your work, they suggest all sorts of techniques and strategies for carving up and diving your day to manage your time better.

But here’s the thing:

Motivation isn’t a time problem. It’s an energy problem.

You can have all the time in the world but if you’re doing things that drain you of energy, you’re not going to feel motivated.

Luckily, the reverse is true:

Even if your time is extremely limited, you can accomplish a tremendous amount with enough energy and enthusiasm.

So forget about managing your time and learn how to manage your energy instead:

• Start your day with your most exciting tasks. Not only will this give you momentum for the rest of the day, it will also make it easier to get out of bed and hit the ground running because the first thing on your list is something you’re genuinely excited about.
• Outsource energy-draining tasks. You don’t have to be a multinational corporation to do outsourcing. Get creative about delegating essential tasks that drain energy, confident that you’ll recoup the expense with the added energy and motivation you’ll get as a result.
• Batch process your energy-draining task. Of course, most of us can’t outsource all our energy-draining tasks. But we can minimize their influence. Instead of spreading them out across your days and weeks, get them all over within one or two days so they don’t contaminate your energy-giving tasks.

When you plan your days, make your overarching principle energy, not time.

The difference between one man and another is not mere ability . . . it is energy.

― Thomas Arnold

2. Surround Yourself with Motivated People

For better or for worse, the people we surround ourselves with impact us greatly—and highly motivated people use this to their advantage.

In small, everyday interactions, you probably already realize how much impact other people can have on your levels of motivation:

• One positive interaction with a supportive and enthusiastic friend can supercharge your own energy and motivation almost instantly.
• On the other hand, just one interaction with a really negative, critical person can drain you of energy and sap your motivation for the day.

But there’s a bigger principle here:

The people you habitually spend time with affect how you habitually feel.

If you really have to interact with energy-draining people, you can’t expect to feel energetic and enthusiastic on a regular basis. But, if you habitually interact with energy-giving people, you can’t help but have some of their enthusiasm and motivation rub off on you.

So be thoughtful about the people you choose to spend your time with:

• If you’re dating, be careful of starting a relationship with someone who consistently takes lots of energy.
• If you’re applying for a new job, look carefully at the energy levels of the people you’ll be working with.
• If you’re starting a new project or business with someone, try to find someone who gives you energy. And if they don’t, their other assets better be really worth it!

If you want to feel more motivated and energized in your life, surround yourself with energy-giving people.

You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

— Jim Rohn

3. Celebrate Your Successes

One of the simplest and most powerful things you can do to feel more motivated is to take time to celebrate your successes—even very small ones.

It’s a basic law of human psychology that behaviors followed by a reward are more likely to happen in the future:

• If you successfully run your first 5K and have a handful of close friends at the finish line to cheer you on and congratulate you, your motivation to run future races in the future goes way up.
• If you’re willing to be vulnerable with your spouse about something that’s bothering you and they let you know they’re proud of you for bringing it up, you’re going to feel more confident talking about difficult things in the future.

The lesson here is obvious:

Learn to build a tiny habit of celebrating your own successes, and you’ll create a steady stream of motivation for future goals.

Thankfully, you don’t have to buy yourself expensive things or throw a giant party in order to celebrate your successes and build motivation.

It’s a funny quirk of human psychology that the size of the reward doesn’t matter nearly as much as the timing. More specifically:

A small reward delivered immediately beats a big reward delayed.

For example:

• Tell yourself that you are proud of yourself after getting an A on that recent test.
• After nailing a presentation at work, close your office door, put on your favorite song, and throw yourself a little dance party.
• After going for that early morning run, splurge on a fancy cup of coffee and muffin.

Build the habit of using small, immediate rewards for your accomplishments and your motivation will surge.

Rewarding yourself for a job well-done doesn’t make you vain. It just means you’re psychologically savvy.

4. Be Compassionate with Your Failures

There’s no better way to kill your motivation than beating yourself up after a failure or setback.

People with chronically low motivation almost always have a habit of being harsh and judgmental with themselves after failures and mistakes:

• They criticize themselves with negative self-talk.
• They judge themselves as being weak and not worthy.
• And they punish themselves in a misguided attempt to motivate themselves in the future.

But being a jerk to yourself doesn’t motivate you to do anything but be more of a jerk to yourself.

Luckily, the reverse is also true:

Nothing helps you recover quickly from a setback like a little self-compassion.

Highly motivated people aren’t merely good at giving themselves energy and motivation—they’re also skilled at maintaining their motivation, even in the face of setbacks.

And the best way to preserve your energy and motivation in the face of failure or mistakes is to practice a little self-compassion:

• Talk to yourself like you would talk to a good friend who was struggling.
• Be empathetic and remind yourself that you are more than the sum of your mistakes. Much more.
• Acknowledge that making mistakes and feeling bad doesn’t mean you are bad or weak.

Learn to be gentle with yourself and you’ll be far more resilient in the face of adversity.

Failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

— Winston Churchill

5. Design Your Environment to Be Energizing

Just like the activities and people in your life give and take energy, so does your physical environment.

We’re all control freaks at heart. Which means we love the idea that the solution to everything is inside us. And that, with enough insight and willpower, we can accomplish anything.

False.

Your environment matters—a lot—including how much motivation and energy you feel on a regular basis:

• Having a messy and chaotic workspace makes it easy to get distracted, procrastinate, and lose energy to do your work.
• Trying to resolve a disagreement with your spouse in bed at the end of a long day when you’re exhausted makes it hard to be compassionate and manage your irritability.
• Going for a run in cold weather without good gear makes it hard to stay motivated to exercise.

Environmental design is the secret weapon of consistently high motivation.

Of course, you can’t always change your environment. But it’s possible more often than you might think.

And designing your environment to be more conducive to your goals is a fast track to better energy and higher motivation:

• Organize your desk every evening before you leave work so that there’s no friction to getting started in the morning.
• Set a dedicated time early on a weekend morning to discuss disagreements with your spouse—when both of you are rested and able to engage productively.
• Buy good running gear to minimize the dread of going out in the cold.

When you accept that the solution to every problem isn’t just more willpower and pushing harder, you can design your environment to be conducive to your goals instead of causing friction.

Every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.

— Benjamin Franklin

6. Be Ruthless About Saying No

One of the most common causes of low motivation is saying yes to competing motivations.

As we’ve talked about, motivation is energy. When you’re full of energy you feel motivated. And when your energy tank is empty, motivation disappears.

Well, you can’t expect to have high levels of motivation for the things that matter most to you if you’re wasting all your energy on things that don’t really matter:

• How can you possibly have the motivation to say yes to that new hobby or side project when you say yes to 2 hours of Netflix every evening?
• How can you possibly make progress on your personal initiative at work if you’re always saying yes to other people’s requests for your time?
• How can you possibly find quality time to spend with your partner if you say yes to every social event you get invited to?

You have plenty of motivation. Stop wasting it on things that don’t really matter.

Motivation is largely a matter of priorities:

• If that new business idea is really a priority, you would say no to your buddy’s Super Bowl party and spend an entire Sunday writing a business plan.
• If your marriage is really a priority, you would say no to poker night with the boys and plan a date night.
• If your health was really a priority, you would say no to the comforts of sleeping in and get to the gym first thing.

You only have so much energy each day. If you distribute it across dozens of unimportant or draining things, you won’t have enough left to do the things that matter most.

If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.

— Greg McKeown

source: https://nickwignall.com/6-secrets-of-highly-motivated-people/ 

bonus material: 50 Habits of Highly Successful People (slideshare)