This graph shows how many productive work minutes you get when adding an additional person who works 40 hours a week, to a team that spends 2-60 minutes per week on each team member to keep them in sync with the rest of the team. If you spend 30 minutes of everyone’s time per person to keep then in sync with everyone else, then if you try to scale that to 80 people, you have gained no productive hours, as it takes 40 hours just to keep everyone in sync with your last employee:
I think the effect you’re describing is even stronger than this model/graph implies, because the 40 hours you’re gaining are marginal-employee-hours, while the coordination costs are paid in average-employee-hours.
I think the effect you’re describing is even stronger than this model/graph implies, because the 40 hours you’re gaining are marginal-employee-hours, while the coordination costs are paid in average-employee-hours.