For the last four years we have been conducting detailed market research on what makes some product teams more successful than others. Over this time span we have identified nineteen statistically significant factors that have a direct bearing on whether a product team performs at a high level or not.
In anticipation of our latest white paper’s launch in July I want to share some data on the size of core product teams. By core we mean the roles that lie at the center of a product teams activities. For instance, the product manager or owner, the engineer, a project manager or scrum master, etc. The titles vary by organization and vertical. However, definite patterns appear in the data.
Findings: Size of Core Product Teams
In companies with less than $50 M in revenue 42% of organizations have between one to four team members. Another 38% have five to nine core team members. So while smaller teams dominate it is only by a few percentage points.
When a company moves up to more than $50 M in annual revenue but less than $500 M the size of teams shows a dramatic jump with 37% of survey respondents indicating that there are between ten to thirty members on their core team! We attribute this to rapid scaling taking place inside the business and increased levels of specialization that did not exist in the preceeding stage of growth.
As one might expect when a company grows larger than $500 M the size of teams gets whittled down again. Thirty-nine percent of companies with over $500 M up to $2 B in annualized revenues state that they have five to nine core team members with ten to thirty the next most popular category with twenty-six percent of responses.
Finally, the majority of companies with over $2B in annual revenues also state their core product teams are primarily made up of five to nine team members (35%). However, ten to thirty is close behind at thirty-one percent.
In Conclusion
Companies with less than $50 M in annualized revenues have the smallest core teams as one would expect. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, the next tier from $50 M to $499 M shows the largest team size with between ten to thirty team members being dominant. This appears to be a temporary phase brought on by rapid scaling and increased levels of specialization that tends to get sorted out as companies cross the $500 M mark in annualized revenues. Team size tends to contract to between five to nine core product team members. This five to nine number is the most consistent size of core team configuration.
How large is your core product team?
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