2026-03-28 Scaling, Handoffs, Pizza & Dumbar

One thing I’ve been mulling over this week is the challenge in front of us as we scale.

We are effectively doubling the size of the programme. That is a big opportunity, but also a real test. The question is not just whether we can absorb more people. It is whether we can double in size and deliver twice as fast, rather than accidentally building something slower, heavier and full of joins.

At smaller scale, you can get away with quite a lot. People know each other, context travels informally, and problems get solved quickly. As you grow, that gets harder. If you are not careful, what creeps in is more handoffs, more layers, more coordination, and more effort spent moving work around than moving it forward.

Every individual handoff can look sensible. Team A does its bit, then passes to Team B, who pass to Team C, who need a decision from Team D. Very neat on a structure chart. Less impressive when you are trying to deliver at pace.

The problem is that handoffs are rarely smooth. They create waiting time, they break context, and they add to overall cycle time. Work sits in queues, priorities get reinterpreted, and momentum drops off between teams.

That is why this cannot just be about smaller teams for the sake of it. It needs to be about teams formed around the work, with the right mix of skills and enough ownership to make meaningful progress without constantly throwing things over the fence. The two-pizza team idea is a bit overused, but the principle still stands: the more a team can stay close to the outcome and get the job done end to end, the less energy gets wasted in translation and delay.

The same goes for Dunbar’s number. People often cite 150 as a rough limit for the number of relationships a person can maintain in a meaningful way. Our programme will grow beyond that during this scaling, which means we cannot rely on informal connections and goodwill alone to keep everything aligned. More people does not automatically mean more delivery. Sometimes it just means more communication paths and more opportunities for work to stall between the cracks.

That sounds like a risk, but I actually think it is an opportunity.

If we approach scaling with a growth mindset, this is our chance to design something better, not just bigger. More deliberate team design. Clearer ownership. Fewer unnecessary handoffs. Better flow across the system. More resilience, and less dependence on heroics.

So for me, the real challenge over the coming months is not just scaling headcount. It is scaling in a way that helps us deliver faster, with teams formed around the work and structured to reduce waiting, reduce handoffs, and improve flow.

Because if we double in size and end up with twice as many queues and coordination points, we will have learned the wrong lesson.