What makes a great team?

Jon McKinsey's Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith defines great teams as: "a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable." There's a reason why the guys and gals at Googleplex form a group of 3-4 members to build their web applications. Gmail wasn't built by a team of thousands. The core of the application was built by less than 5. So was Google Calendar, and Google's initial search engine that rocked the internet world.

Simplicity in teams works.

The less number of people on a team, the more accountable each team member will be to produce. The less number of team members, the quicker the deadlines. The quicker the production. The better the morale. You put too many people on a team, and what do you get? Politics. Too few? Your team won't shore up weaknesses. Building a great restaurant, law practice, basketball team, etc, etc, etc.? Use a core team of 3-5 to launch it.

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