10 laws · Leadership, teams & operations
Laws of leadership, management and teams
What happens to people, teams, and processes as a business grows — promotions, team size, coordination, expectations, and the maths of getting work through the system.
Peter Principle
In a hierarchy, people tend to be promoted until they reach a role they are not competent at — and stay there.
Brooks's Law
Adding people to a late project makes it later.
Conway's Law
Organisations design systems and products that mirror their own communication structures.
Price's Law
In any group, roughly the square root of the number of people produce half of the output.
Dunbar's Number
People can maintain only around 150 stable social relationships at a time.
Ringelmann Effect
As group size increases, individual effort tends to decrease.
Pygmalion Effect
Higher expectations from leaders lead to higher performance from the people they lead.
Hawthorne Effect
People change their behaviour when they know they are being observed or studied.
Little's Law
Average work in progress equals throughput multiplied by average time each item spends in the system (L = λW).
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the organisation itself eventually gain control over those devoted to its goals.