Newsletter (MAY 2025): When Teams Grow Too Large: Solving Cognitive Load Issues

Written By Ana Ciobotaru
 
 
 

This edition was curated by João Rosa



Is your team suffering from size-related cognitive overload? Team Topologies offers practical solutions.

The hidden cost of large teams

A team of 20 people might seem perfectly functional on the surface, but large teams create significant challenges that directly impact cognitive load and delivery speed.

The most obvious issue? Communication complexity. With 20 people, you're dealing with 190 possible communication paths between team members (n(n-1)/2).

Figure 1 - Representation of the number of communication lines (Source)

This translates to:

  • Slower information flow

  • More alignment meetings

  • Delayed decision-making

  • Increased coordination overhead

All of these block the fast flow of change that digital organizations need.

What's the right size?

Team Topologies recommends teams of around 8 people, based on Dunbar's number research showing we can maintain:

  • 5 close relationships

  • 15 high-trust relationships

When teams exceed 15 people, trust relationships become harder to maintain, directly increasing cognitive load.

Evolution paths for oversized teams

If your Teamperature measurements show high cognitive load due to team complexity, and you identified that the team is oversized, consider these evolution paths:

1. Form Independent Stream-Aligned Teams

When handling disparate user personas or business areas, split into separate stream-aligned teams, each serving different purposes with minimal interaction between them.

Figure 2 - Big team evolving to independent stream-aligned teams

2. Form a platform grouping

Convert part of your large team into platform teams that provide services to stream-aligned teams, using X-as-a-Service interaction to reduce cognitive load for the consuming teams.

Figure 3 - Big team evolving to separate stream-aligned team and platform grouping

3. Create a complicated subsystem team

When specialized knowledge requires dedicated focus, form a team to handle complex technical components while allowing stream-aligned teams to focus on delivering customer value.

Figure 4 - Big team evolving to a complicated subsystem team and separated stream-aligned teams

Measuring progress with Teamperature

Teamperature's team cognitive load model defines team complexity as “(...) the larger and more complex the team, the more transactive activities will be needed to coordinate members actions and the more communication is needed within the team increasing cognitive load”.

As you implement these (or similar) changes, Teamperature helps track the impact on team cognitive load. The team complexity driver should decrease over time, though remember that service viability, software architecture, and flow practices also influence overall measurements.

Next steps

In our upcoming newsletters, we'll dive deeper into different scenarios of cognitive load issues and how Teamperature can help identify them. We'll also explore how to create different options for teams and interactions evolutions with Team Topologies.

Have you experienced challenges with oversized teams? How did you address them? Share your experiences or questions with us by replying to this newsletter.

If you’re using Teamperature to spot signs of stress or misalignment in large teams, you already know how important it is to manage cognitive load. But what comes next? The Team Topologies Academy is a great next step — offering clear, practical courses on how to structure teams for fast flow, healthy interactions, and sustainable delivery. It’s the ideal companion to Teamperature, helping you turn signals into real, lasting improvements.

We are gathering all Team Topologies events on our Events page and would love to hear your feedback about the ones you have attended or the ones that we have missed.

What’s coming up next?

We are gathering all Team Topologies events on our Events page and would love to hear your feedback about the ones you have attended or the ones that we have missed


Have we missed an event around Team Topologies? Let us know.

Welcome Team Topologies advocates

We are proud to have new Team Topologies Advocates:

If you're passionate about Team Topologies and want to become an advocate, we would love to have you join us. Or, if you have a story to share, we would be happy to feature it on the website.


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Ana Ciobotaru
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