Great questions! Each team has a specific domain -- we have a customer experience team, a contributor team, a search team, etc. Each team also has one or more stakeholders -- business folks that help set the high-level direction of the team. The teams work with their stakeholders (some of whom are super hands-on, others aren't) to pick 2-3 projects per quarter to focus on. We try to talk in terms of the problems each team should solve, and let the team itself work out the best solution.
It has taken us years to refine our process, and it's been a great journey. I'm happy to chat more about it with anyone -- hit me up at dan at shutterstock.com