The 2 Pizza Rule For Team Sizing

     In today’s modern world, teams are used to address, develop. solve and implement many problems.  However, most leaders make the team substantially larger and more cumbersome than it needs to be.

      Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame likes to use the “Two Pizza Rule” when developing teams used for strategy and development.  Bezos believes that if  2 pizzas cannot feed the whole team, then the team is too big!
Now, you might think that this is silly.  Research shows that the 2 Pizza Rule for team size actually came about from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970’s.  Research work at Xerox Palo Alto determined that the smaller the size, the better the team end product tended to be.

      In your environment today, we believe that the same is true.  Smaller is normally better when working on any significant project.  Now, you have to insure that you have the right team members on the team, however, having a smaller number of them will normally yield better overall results.

       The next time that you are wondering about team size, just remember the 2 Pizza Rule.  If takes more than 2 Pizzas to feed the team, then the team it too big!  You will need to reduce the size of the team so that you achieve greater efficiency and not have to buy more than 2 pizzas to feed the whole team!