> The ideal is ...
Nope. That was perhaps the case in the 50-80s, but today we can do much better, and it's dependent on the people, the culture, and the market/product structure and strategy.
Nope. That was perhaps the case in the 50-80s, but today we can do much better, and it's dependent on the people, the culture, and the market/product structure and strategy.
An observation from my work experience is that, while things run efficiently with smaller teams overall, small teams also tend to make it easier for any given leader to have a reasonably good idea what's going on across their org (it's easier to grok a 50 person team's work when it's split into 10 mgr teams than if it were completely flat), but that also puts the lower level managers' jobs at risk because their director is more likely not to consider them essential -- ironically, because things are running smoothly.
Smaller companies tend to have stronger focus of just getting stuff done. It's clear who has responsibility. People can more easily make a decision on their own or in small groups and just get it done, without involving a clown car of middle managers.
When I build projects I only have two "levels". Management have final say on budgets, targets and priorities. Experts/devs/techs get the work done. They generally make decisions with full autonomy and self organise. If they need help with coordination, planning, followup, etc then management steps in. Management also monitor and track. Usually my management has very strong technical skills and tend to be part of the daily work in the trenches.