Organize teams so that all core actions for a job can be done within the team.
- WARNING: Teams that need an outside person to finish work will always have impediments slowing them down.
Usually it takes multiple team members, with a variety of skills, working together; sometimes it takes multiple teams working together.
- TIP: If the work is too large for a small team, use techniques like Story Splitting to divide the work between multiple teams.
Smaller sub-teams (e.g. 5-12 members) are often more effective because they allow for more communication between team members.
Team membership needs to be stable for optimal operation, the building of trust, and more-effective communication.
- WARNING: Team members need to be allocated 100% to a team; partial allocation slows all teams down.
- TIP: If you need a team member to work with another team temporarily, don’t move the person; move the work to the team with the needed person.

P4.2 Cross-Functional Teams

Leverage and share the combined experience and knowledge of the entire organization in a central location.
- CAUTION: Lack of sharing can result in “reinventing the wheel,” duplication of work as team members solve the same problems from scratch, resulting in slower delivery.
Your best, brightest, and most-innovative employees can’t participate in all teams, but their shared ideas can.
Allow everyone to contribute to the knowledgebase, not just senior team members.
Report back to the knowledgebase on the effectiveness of techniques in other teams; not every idea will work in every setting.
Research and share better practices outside of your organization for greater effectiveness.

P4.3 Shared Better Practices

We prioritize and compromise to meet timelines; set aside time in the future to clean up compromises.
- WARNING: If you never have time to revisit old decisions, chances are you are working at 100% capacity; research shows that working at 100% is less-productive than 80% capacity and even 60% capacity.
Sometimes we make better decisions for the long term when looking back in the future; now is the second-best time to clean up your work.
Often once we understand how the pieces of the system fit together, it gets simpler; look for patterns and redesign around them.