You Need to Connect the Dots in Order to Understand the Future of Work: Social Atrophy, Team Dynamics and Productivity

As organizations grow, change happens. People react differently to change; team dynamics change as well. Some flourish, some struggle. In the modern, social (network)-infused workplace, just keeping up can be exhausting.

This topic is of particular interest as Agile Sprints, an assumed path to productivity, has moved beyond the software development team space. Agile Sprints are now used within content production, editorial processes, marketing programs and more. Studies and subsequent data show a definitive correlation among team size, productivity and social dynamics for Agile Sprints within development teams.

Can these findings be transferred out of the development team? Probably, but connecting the dots requires a bit of poetic license. The future of productivity will see a balance between interpersonal relationships and optimal team size in order to get work done.

Relationships Take Energy, Communications Take Time

Within any team, there is an activation energy required by all members to establish relationships; further investment is then needed to foster the interpersonal relationships required to accomplish quality work. The tighter the relationships, the greater the productivity. Successful investment in relationship building is the difference between a group and a team. There are many 1:1 relationships within each team. The total number per team is dependent upon team size. While the diagram below is descriptive, what I believe is missing are previously formed relationships, office friendships, cross-functional teams, committees, senior staff and so on … 

In other words, relationship building is even more complex than already depicted; this is especially true if you try to apply Agile Sprint methods to non-development personality types. I have watched and worked within both — yes, there is a palpable difference. But the interesting thing about tight relationships: They remain tight. (Image Source)

However, as organizations grow, teams and team structure are disrupted. This causes a much bigger issue than many (management) understand. The back-channel conversations increase; people have limited direct information, so a fair bit of information is assumed. More channels, more time, more energy.

“Anecdotally, having studied team member interactions at clients’ sites, I can say that in teams of 7-to-8 people, upwards of 90 minutes, per person, each day is spent interacting with other team members,” according to an article titled “Choosing the Team Size in Scrum” on AgilePainRelief.com

Investing time does not feel like too much of a stretch; 11-to-12 minutes per person, per day. This data is specific to software development types; I would like to learn more about non-technical teams. There is little discussion of team diversity issues as well. Non-technical people typically take a different approach than developers do in regard to communications style. What are your thoughts? What do you see within your teams?

Putnam and Myers surveyed data from 491 projects in large corporations, focusing on team size, productivity and quality (development focus), and found that small teams produce the most success. But before you jump to keeping teams small (which has its own advantages and disadvantages) caution is advised. In teams of 1.5-to-3 people, productivity wins, but quality suffers. In “Impact of Agile Quantified,” thought leader Larry Maccherone showed through the use of a performance score that teams of 1-to-3 had lower quality when compared to larger teams of almost any size (reference used from source blog).

Sure, But How Do People Feel?

In the current work environment, there are many articles and some, well, very vocal folks who discuss the emotional quotient in regard to employees and employee engagement. In an information economy, with people among the top three costs, this is actually one of the biggest problems that organizations are facing. It does not matter whether the issues are real; the perception is that they are, and thus need to be addressed. These perceptions are masked as conversations about age, industry, gender and a few other areas. Additional energy and effort are required to move past these issues — well worth it, I will add, but energy nonetheless.

Even more interesting data comes into play when a researcher asks people “how they feel” in regard to team size; per the results, the optimal team size might be 4.6 members (yeah, I know, .6 people…). This starts to consider satisfaction as an indicator — how do people “feel.”

I have found that in-person collaboration with larger groups is stifled. Collaboration tools do help, unless there are too many tools in the mix. The tools conversation becomes particularly interesting when you consider the inside tools (Slack, Google, etc.) versus external tools: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and then add Snapchat, Skype and SMS. Did I mention the walk-by meetings? From conversations I have had, people often feel distracted. A Slack message can be distracting, to others a drive-by interruption is a problem. I have even heard that group meetings are a distraction; to each their own.

Moving further still into the group dynamics realm, one needs to bear in mind how the organization changes around these small teams. There is a very real sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) when you consider all of the networks. On a more serious note, individuals become distracted as the organizational changes happen around them. Maintaining the relationships becomes exhausting. Conversations happen on every channel possible, over lunch and then for drinks at the bar too. (Image Source: American Sociological Association)

The term “Social Atrophy”, lacks a formal, official definition, is new to me, but it is an apt descriptor to the problem. “Notice when the organization is small that being human (sharing, collaboration, camaraderie, error tolerance) is a big part of the day-to-day and hierarchy is really in name only. As the organization grows however so too can the rigidity of hierarchy leading to a decline in humanity.” (The Simple Shift)

Creating process will solve some problems caused by social atrophy but create others. The author of the graphic above suggested a series of warning signs — I agree with many of them, but think that the list is actually much bigger. The impact of each point is not equal, either, both to an individual and across an organization. For example, some team members may become concerned about employee departures, while others are more concerned with new layers of management.

My Top 3 +2 Warning Signs of Social Atrophy

•  Departments become insular and protective
•  Communication moves increasingly top down
•  New processes introduced and each more rigid than the next
•  Management is less accommodating to individual team members
• Knowledge hoarding is rewarded; learning takes a backseat

Where Do We Go From Here?

Looking at a few more data points from Pew Research just may point us in the right direction. Since 1985, employability favors people with social and analytical skills. 

I will state that I do not believe “social skills” refer specifically to Snapchat or Instagram; rather softer communications capabilities. The second chart from Pew Research below reinforces this point as well. After the basics in computer literacy, 85 percent found that capabilities in both the area of working with people from different backgrounds and training in writing and communicating are either “Extremely Important” or “Very Important.”

The answer, I am borrowing from Pew (or wherever they borrowed it from), to Social Atrophy, is “Social Dexterity”. In order to move Agile Sprint practices beyond the development team and into the rest of the organization, new skills are required. Some of these skills are trainable, some are not, they are experience based. In an odd twist of words, terms and methods, individuals need to be agile within their own approach to productivity. Team members need to filter the signal from noise (headphones work). 

G2 Crowd is releasing its third quarterly research report: Crowd Views. The first two focused on “Solving the Talent Crisis” and “Solving Common Enterprise Problems.” This edition is about small business and the technology they use to solve their problems. The goal of this edition of Crowd Views is to help other small businesses understand what their peers are using to solve business problems. You can also download in full the latest Crowd Views from G2 Crowd.