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Fun fact: there are only 3,915 businesses in Australia (or 0.5% of businesses in Aus) that have more than 200 employees. In the US there are only 1346 firms (0.1%) with > 2,500 employees. So it doesn't really matter if a @MicrosoftTeams team can have 2500, or 5000 members 1/x
...those organisations are not "one team". But dozens/100s of teams working together towards a common purpose. Smaller teams are established to enable people to focus on specific goals w/out having to focus on the exponentially increasing overhead of keeping the team together 2/x
... Dunabar (an Anthropologist) has some thoughts on what team sizes should be (based on research into primates, villages, and tribes). You might have read about it Gladwell's "The Tipping Point". Basically if you have more than 150 people... it isn't worth it 3/x
... from a 'social grooming' overhead point of view. Any more than that (more than 150). and it is time to split into another team/group/specialty. Most real teams don't even get close to the 150 member mark 4/x
...for those that get close to 150, they need a really good reason to stick together "only groups under intense survival pressure, such as subsistence villages, nomadic tribes, and historical military groupings, have, on average, achieved the 150-member mark" (from Wikipedia) 5/x
... if you want to use Teams for teamwork... the technical limit of the number of members a Team can have doesn't matter. Now... If you want to use it to broadcast messages to everyone in your organisation... an all org Team isn't the right tool to land the message either 6/x
... all hands style via regular town halls / longer form newsletter/post (different from the usual way we communicate within a team) cut through. Chat, not so much. Also, managers and team leaders play a role contextualing that all org communication for their (smaller) team 7/x
... and the teams specific goals. That context is different for every team in your organisation. Ever been to a party where you have tried to hear someone talk when 50, 100, 150+ people around you are chatting away. It is difficult to make meaning of what they are saying 8/x
... much easier to hear, understand, and apply that communication as needed when you are in a smaller group of 8/12/20 people who have specific common goals 9/x
...anyway, end of my @MicrosoftTeams rant for now. Don't get excited by all organisation teams (unless your org is small enough that you are all TRULY one team), or 2500, now 5000 member teams. Don't let the technology dictate how best to organise work. #SmallerTeamsMakeTeamwork
PS... Teamwork (ie getting shit done) is different from stepping out of the flow of work for broader situational awareness / discovery / learning / reflection across teams or silos in your org. That is where something like @Yammer can excel. Will save that topic for another day
(rant inspired by @martmuller) 
