Ideal Sizes Of Groups And Teams

One size dont fit all. There are 3 ideal sizes for groups. 

A group is homogeneous, it means it consists of people doing similar jobs.

A small group should have 4 members. A medium one should have 6 members. A large group should have 8 members.

A person cannot directly handle more than 7 people at a time effectively, provided that (i) the person has no secretaries etc, and (ii) he must do his own work (not related to management) too, and (iii) the people are part of same group i.e. doing same type of job.

The number 7 is already an overload.

At the other extreme, a person handling only 1 or 2 people is grossly inefficient. If a person has to command people then he must have atleast 3 people under him; its still unnecessarily inefficient but not grossly so, even handling 4 people is a waste.

When the number reaches 5 all unnecessary inefficiency is eliminated. 6 is full capacity, near-overloading but manageable, leaves no room for unforeseen circumstances because there is not even necessary inefficiency left.  

A group can be either a direct action group, or a support group (these are 2 categories of groups). Shooters in trenches, for example, are members of a direct action group. Medics, also in trenches, but not doing direct action, are members of a support group.

Members of a group, no matter the category, will be under command of a non-commissioned/non-gazetted officer, called supervisor (except when they are in a squad, then they are in command of a squad-leader who need not be an officer; squads will be in general smaller than groups, and will always be temporary, usually made for a sub-task only but can exist for entire task).

Supervisor of a group is same as an adjutant in an european army and a sergeant in american army.

There will be as many non-commissioned/non-gazetted officers as groups in a unit/team, plus a few more if attrition rate is high (high fatality rate in battlefield, high employees turnover rate in business etc). 

All of the non-commissioned/non-gazetted officers in a unit/team will be under direct command of a
Commissioned/Gazetted Officer who will be the Commanding Officer of the unit/team.

Groups will have grades, depending on their types. Helper group will be a grade lower than the shooter grade, medic grade would be same as shooter grade etc.


Helpers will be loaders/sweepers/tent-pitchers/utensils-washers/shoes-polishers/clothes-ironers etc. Each members of a helper group is expected to do any or all of above as need arise. 


People too will have grades. Grade will mostly come with experience (other things such as quality and quantity of performance will be considered too, individually as minor factors).


In a group, members will be divided into 3 grades. The top-most grade will make an operative a first-line manager.

An operative is a worker that is not a manager, i.e. not have anybody under his command (manager by definition is a person who have other people in his command).

An officer can or cannot be a manager. Some officers will be managers, some officers will be operatives.

Officer can either be non-commissioned/non-gazetted, or Commissioned/Gazetted. Both of these can either be a manager or an operative.

Education will indicate commission-ness/gazetted-ness of an officer. For example all engineers and doctors will be gazetted, even though they will be operatives at start and some of them will become managers later on. Engineers and doctors have 4 years of formal education after inter/A-Levels. A NCO/NGO needs to have 2 years of formal education after inter/A-levels.

For sub-tasks, and in some situations for entire tasks, the Commanding Officer will make squads from members of different types or same type or even same group. Examples of squads are: a medic working with a helper when the sub-task is to bring wounded solders to field hospitals, 2 medics working together when the sub-task is to provide extended first-aid to wounded soldiers in trenches, 4 shooters doing surveillance, 2 helpers taking supplies (food, water, ammunition, medical stuff) manually to trenches etc.

If a squad consists of members of the same group, or same type of group, then the most senior member of the highest grade people in the squad will automatically become the squad-leader.  Same if groups are of different types but same grade.

If a squad consists of members of different groups, and those groups have different grades, then no member of a lower-grade group can become squal-leader.


Squad will not automatically end at completion of sub-task, but need to be formally ended by the Commanding Officer. A squad will usually be ended at end of de-briefing.

Squad-leader will be temporarily incharge of the people in squad. All squad-leaders will report directly to the Commanding Officer.

The Commanding Officer cannot change above stated rules of choosing of squad-leader. He can, however, make and end squads, and choose which people to put in which squads.

Supervisors and squad-leaders will always come from the non-officer operatives, they will never be appointed directly.

Non-officer operatives include foot soldiers in army, labours in farms and factories, clerks in accounting departments, salesmen in shops, surveyors in marketing departments, para-medical staff in clinics and hospitals etc. They do bulk of the work when counted in number of hours and effort, but never all the work and not always all of the most important work.

Engineers, doctors, tank-men in army, pilots in air force, advisors etc are either officer operatives or officer managers.

There will be 3 to 7 operatives in a group; and 4 to 6 groups in a team/unit. An average Commissioned/Gazetted Officer will thus have 30 people under his command.