Two Pizzas and a Meeting

I was reading last week about Amazon.com's theory on meetings. They have a two-pizza rule on projects and teams: If a group would consume more than two pizzas in a sitting, the team is too big and destined to get bogged down in bureaucracy.

Aside from the fact that Amazon.com's execs have never watched me consume pizza, the general principle of this "two-pizza" concept makes a whole lot of sense.

Small teams are more agile and able to ensure that every person has an opportunity to fully understand the issues at hand. Questions and concerns can be dealt with quickly and comprehensively without leading to rabbit trails and other discussions which are only tangentially connected to the actual objective of the team.

Yes, smaller teams leave some people out of the conversation. But ultimately, those people were likely to be left out of the discussion of a bigger team too - they would have been present, but not a real part of the discussion. Inevitably, the real decisions will be made outside the meeting by a smaller group of people anyway.

If the team will consume more than two pizzas, you might consider making it smaller. The result will be teams that are more productive, efficient, and because they won't have to meet as frequently, happier.