Field guide · 7 tools
Virtual team building, measured in pairs rather than events
Eight people, six pairs
A team of eight has twenty-eight possible pairs. On the one counted here, six of them have ever worked on anything together, and the manager is in five of the six. Everything on this site asks the same question of every activity, offsite and ritual: did any pair exist afterwards that did not exist before?
When a team wants evidence without reducing people to a score, employee monitoring software can help connect time and project patterns to a transparent discussion about workload.
For a separate perspective on teams and working practice, consult American Psychological Association.
50notes about whether a distributed team is a team or a list of names
6parts, from the roster to the work that does or does not run between them
28possible pairs in the one team counted on this site, which has 8 people on it
6of those pairs have ever worked on anything together, counted from the work itself
Nothing here is a benchmark. Every figure on this site comes from one team of eight over one quarter, written down at the time, and the only claim made for it is that those were its numbers. No person is named anywhere: the roster is roles. Nothing in this collection is employment advice — what may be required of somebody, how work is assessed and what an employer may ask differ by jurisdiction and by contract, and they change.
Six parts, from the list of names to the work
Every note belongs to one of them. The line at the foot of each card is what that part costs when it is skipped, stated as a thing that happened to one team rather than as a principle.
What a team is
What a team is
A box on a chart is a reporting arrangement. Whether it is also a team is a separate question with a checkable answer.
one word covering five different things
Who has worked with whom
Who has worked with whom
The only measure on this site that does not depend on anybody's opinion of the team, and the procedure for taking it.
twenty-two pairs that have never shared a task
What you share
What you actually share
List everything the team genuinely has in common and sort it by how many of them it is true of. The shape is narrower than anybody expects.
two rows true of all eight, both administrative
The events
The events
Quizzes, offsites, icebreakers and coffee roulette, each judged by whether any pair existed afterwards that did not exist before.
a year of events and the same six pairs
Who is still here
Who is still here
Tenure on the team against tenure in the company, what a departure removes, and why a team of experienced people can be four months old.
a median of nine months on a fourteen-month team
What to do instead
What to do instead
The things that actually make pairs. Most of them cost nothing and several are already on your team's calendar doing something else.
four deliberate pairings in thirteen weeks
One team of eight, counted three ways
Three panels about the same eight people, taken from one quarter's actual work: what ran between them, what they had in common, and how long each of them had been there. Nothing here is a benchmark. It is one team, and the only claim made for it is that these were its numbers. No person is named anywhere on this site; the roster is roles.
Eight people, and which of them have ever worked on anything together
- 01The team's managerFive of the six working pairs on this team run through this one person
- 02The senior engineerThe only working pair that does not involve the manager
- 03The second engineerEleven months on the team
- 04The engineer who joined in MarchHas worked with nobody else on this team
- 05The designerShared with two other teams
- 06The data analyst
- 07The product managerWrites the brief everybody reads, and works with none of them
- 08The QA engineer
eight people · 28 possible pairs · 6 of them have worked on something together · 4 have only been in the same meeting · 18 have never done either · one repeated row not drawn
A ninth line was given to this panel and is not drawn. It names a role that already has a row, and the grid is addressed by person: two rows for one person would set the same cells twice with two different answers. It was a transcription error made while collecting, and the sign refusing it is how it was found.
What these eight actually have in common, by how much of the team it is true of
What they have in commonHow much of the teamCount
The same manager
8 of 8The only thing true of all eight, and the reason they appear in one box
The same company all-hands
8 of 8Attendance is not shared work
Any work at all in the last quarter with another member
7 of 8Everybody except the engineer who joined in March
A working day that overlaps by three hours or more
5 of 8The same codebase
4 of 8Two engineers, the analyst and the QA engineer
A recurring meeting other than the all-hands
3 of 8The same product area
3 of 8Having met in person, ever
2 of 8The two who sat in one office before this team existed
Any such work with somebody other than the manager
2 of 8The two engineers, and nobody else
nine things · the team is eight people · the widest is shared by eight, the narrowest by two · two of the nine are true of all of them
Two further lines were given to this panel and are not drawn. One claims more people than the team has, which cannot be true of anything; it came from a list that still had somebody on it who left in the spring. The other is true of nobody, and a bar of no width reads as a bar that went missing rather than as a nought.
How long each of them has been on this team, against how long they have been in the company
WhoMonths in the company, latest at the rightMonths
The team's manager
14 on the team61 in the companyMade the team fourteen months ago out of people who already worked here
The senior engineer
14 on the team38 in the companyOn it from the first day it existed
The second engineer
11 on the team11 in the companyJoined the company and the team on the same morning
The QA engineer
9 on the team52 in the companyThe engineer who joined in March
7 on the team7 in the companyThe designer
5 on the team44 in the companyMoved across from another product in June
The data analyst
4 on the team19 in the companyShared with two other teams, and counted here at full time, which overstates it
The product manager
3 on the team3 in the companyThe third product manager this team has had in fourteen months
eight people · median 9 months on this team · the longest-standing has 14 months · five of them have been on it for less than half the time they have been in the company
Two further lines were given to this panel and are not drawn. One puts twenty months on a team inside fourteen months at the company, which cannot happen and would draw the segment past the end of its own track; it was a date typed with the wrong year. The other gives no company time at all, and the track would have nothing to be a part of.
01 / 06one word covering five different things
What a team is
A box on a chart is a reporting arrangement. Whether it is also a team is a separate question with a checkable answer.
02 / 06twenty-two pairs that have never shared a task
Who has worked with whom
The only measure on this site that does not depend on anybody's opinion of the team, and the procedure for taking it.
- How to count the pairs on your team
- What counts as having worked together
- The manager in the middle of everything
- Reading a sparse matrix without panic
- The pair that only exists in a meeting
- Why the measure survives disagreement
- Counting pairs without watching anybody
- What the count looks like after a year
- The first number to write down
04 / 06a year of events and the same six pairs
The events
Quizzes, offsites, icebreakers and coffee roulette, each judged by whether any pair existed afterwards that did not exist before.
05 / 06a median of nine months on a fourteen-month team
Who is still here
Tenure on the team against tenure in the company, what a departure removes, and why a team of experienced people can be four months old.
06 / 06four deliberate pairings in thirteen weeks
What to do instead
The things that actually make pairs. Most of them cost nothing and several are already on your team's calendar doing something else.
The short version
Count the pairs before you book the event
A quiz night does not make a pair. The only thing that turns two people into a working pair is a piece of work that needs both of them, and that can be arranged on a Tuesday for nothing. Of the twenty-eight possible pairs on this team, six had ever worked together, and five of those six ran through the manager.
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