📝Work expands to fill available team

source

Fried & Hansson₂₀₁₈ p.175

Besides having a tendency to fill all available time, work also tends to fill all available team. It’s hard to make a small change when you have a big team and simple changes become big.

I think this happens because more people get involved into making the change, and everyone has their own opinion, so more time is spent consulting and incorporating all ideas. While this might produce a “better” solution, it’s likely not what business is looking for—most of the time the business would prefer faster delivery and smaller change.

Small team can make either small or big changes; big team can only make big changes.

See also

• Conway’s law. Is it related? One could say that team size also influences the available solutions.