Atomic Teams

In software, most of us work in some kind of team. Even when we’re called “individual contributors”, it’s understood that the contribution will happen within the framework of a team.

Given that, you’d think we’d spend quite a bit of time thinking about what teams really are. But we don’t — we skip right over that part, and start talking about autonomous teams, or team effectiveness, or team dynamics. So I want to invite you to pause for a minute, and think about the question, “what is a team?”.

Teams as atoms: an imperfect physics metaphor

A team is the atomic unit of your organization. Not the smallest unit, just as in physics an atom isn’t the smallest unit. But it’s a meaningfully small piece. Meaningful, because it’s complete. Meaningfully small because you can’t divide any further and still have the complete set of functions a team provides.

Inside an atom are neutrons and protons (these are a type of subatomic particle called hadrons), along with electrons. The people who make up teams are like hadrons. They can coalesce and break apart in different combinations, to form atoms/teams.

But even these hadrons are not the smallest units. There are tinier things, quarks, that make up hadrons. That’s kind of like the inside of people’s heads. All up, down, strange, and charmed. It can be fairly hard to understand, unless you have specialist training. But that’s ok, you don’t need to be a PhD in psychology (or physics!) in order to be a good leader. We’ll leave the inside of people’s heads alone.

In order to be a good leader, you do need to understand teams. And you can definitely get your head around a team. That’s because on a team, you can see a lot more of what’s happening; it’s happening between people, not inside their brains.

Team-centric leadership

If you’re in a leadership role, you probably picked up an intuitive understanding of teams along the way. You may have delved deeper into team dynamics and what makes teams great. You have a toolkit for managing people; if you’re lucky, a formal one that’s consistent across your organization, as well as your own unique set of skills for getting the best out of your people. If you’re an aspiring leader, these skills are probably on your list to develop.

What you might be missing is a toolkit for managing teams. Not the individuals on the team. Not the processes the team uses. The team as an entity. And the first part of building that toolkit is to ask yourself: What is this team?

The next time you find yourself jumping into process improvement or performance management as a way to solve a team problem, pause for a moment. And then ask yourself and the team:

• Why does this team exist?
• What is this team good at?
• How should this team behave?

Instead of thinking, “what do we want this team to do?”, ask “what do we need this team to be”? Then, focus your attention on creating the conditions that will allow the team to become that thing.

See if it changes your thinking about the fundamental pieces of your org.

Further reading

I’m a non-physicist who finds physics to be an amazing wellspring of metaphors. In case you want more, here’s a great map of the particles and forces.