DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

Most small organisations, and many of the larger ones face the question of how small or how large should a team be for the team to be effective. One of the key issues is how much can the leader handle?

The issues are obvious. Too many people under one leader and effective and useful senior - team member relationships do not happen. Too few team members and you are under utilizing the leader and also creating a huge hirearchy in the organisation.

The issue is sufficiently important enough to attract the attention of management gurus  over many years.

V. A. Graicunas has calculated (1933) that for n subordinates reporting to a supervisor, the total number of relationships of the supervisor is equal to

n + n(n-1) + n((2^n/2)-1).

Given the nth power in the equation, the number of relationships just balloons out of control for even small numbers of subordinates.

Typically, in practice, in shop floors you see groups tending to 30, and nearer to the top of the hierarchy, you see groups tending to five.

A quick summary of the span of control issue can be found here

Sir Ian Hamilton, another management thinker in his 1922 book --The soul and body of an army writes "The nearer we approach the supreme head of the whole organization, the more we ought to work towards groups of three; the closer we get to the foot of the whole organization, the more we work towards groups of six."

How big is your span of control?