How Teams Quietly Grow Beyond Their Bounds

Jeff Bezos once said that the best teams could be fed by just two pizzas. But what happens when invisible forces turn that ideal meal into a banquet?

Prompted and edited by the author.

It’s a quiet transformation, often unnoticed until it’s too late. Many organizations pride themselves on maintaining agile, nimble teams — small enough to be fed by just two pizzas, as Jeff Bezos famously put it. But beneath the surface, an insidious growth often takes root. This growth isn’t marked by the addition of new desks or formal team member introductions; instead, it creeps in within the complexities of day-to-day operations. This article explores the often-overlooked dynamics that can stealthily expand team sizes, revealing the invisible factors at play that challenge the agility and efficiency that small teams are meant to embody.

“We try to create teams that are no larger than can be fed by two pizzas,” — Jeff Bezos

The story goes that during the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos observed that larger teams often had more communication problems, which made them slower. In contrast, smaller teams were more agile, more innovative, and more capable of making good decisions. Given this experience, he introduced…