Groups, Teams & Tactics

For my purpose I define _group_ of people as collection of similar people i.e. people doing same kind of task. For example: a group of salesmen, a group of tax-accountants, a group of grain-farmers, a group of coat-tailors etc.

I also define the term _team_. I define it as a collection of dissimilar groups .

I dont have to define the term _tactic_. Its current meaning, suffice for my purpose, is technique used to accomplish a task. I do have to define the term _task_ though.

Simply put, a task is smallest, usually repeatable and thus reassign-able goal. Examples are: produce 100 tons of wheat, sew (or make thread for) 100 shirts, run a bakery for a day, defend this square mile for a day, capture that enemy trench and so on.

In this article I will try to figure out where we need groups and where we need teams.

Note that using a team, instead of a group, is same as using Combined Arms Tactics (its a military term).

Combined Arms Tactics has huge benefit of solving most, if not all, of logistics problems (logistics is one of the biggest problems in all tasks).
 
For example, you cannot securely guard a system of trenches or area around a bunker, or make an  offensive by just having a group of shooters, you also need medical staff and supply people. You can choose to have separate units of shooters, medical staff and supply people but this will result in huge nightmare of logistics problem (because of communication gaps and delays).

Note that _unit_ here obviously dont mean a single soldier - but a platoon, company or battalion, depending on type and task. 

Also note that by a medical unit I mean a group of those people that are present when shooting happen, who physically carry wounded (and dead) soldiers on stretches to field hospitals, and provide first aids. I dont mean field hospital people who are behind at (relatively) safe place and dont see shooting when the task was done.

Similarly, by supply unit I mean the group of people that personally, that is, by hand, take supplies to the front where shooting is happening. It not include the truckers etc working behind the fields.   

In order to complete a task where different types of units need to work in close co-ordination, putting them in separate commands make the co-ordination unnecessarily lengthy and complicated, and thus error-prone.

The units that need close co-ordination to work together, must be combined in a single unit.

Note that this merging may result in too large a unit and thus may need to be divided into smaller units, while maintaining the heterogeneity.

If the units dont need close co-ordination, that is, the units can work asynchronously, that is some kind of buffer/storage is present, then Combined Arms Tactics is not needed, because the loss in efficiency cannot be justified by immediate need.


A bakery need not have its own kitchen. The biscuits and cakes etc of the bakery and all other bakeries of the locality should be made in a separate cooking facility. This is both more efficient and manageable. The bakeries can each provide something unique to its customers (that other bakeries dont) by dividing items made in the cooking facility among them, and can also dedicate 1 cook each to themselves, thus providing uniqueness in taste too.

Combined Arms Tactics, that is, giving each bakery a kitchen and a cook that work inside the bakery, is not needed because items cooked can be stored. This is different than the military task discussed above because a wounded soldier cannot really wait for a medic to come all the way from the field hospital, the medic needs to be already nearby. Ofcourse this availability of medics is inefficient because although at some fronts few soldiers will be wounded and at others many we need to provide as much medics at each front as if there are many wounded at all fronts.


In the bakery example I will call collection of salesmen a group, collection of cooks a different type of group, and collection of helpers a yet another type of group. To accomplish the task of running the bakery for a day you will need multiple groups, of all 3 types, in different quantities.

You will need as many groups of salesmen as number of bakeries you are running. Note that its not efficient to run only 1 bakery, your business must run multiple bakeries.

Each group of salesmen will have as many people in it as number of salesmen needed in that bakery. I recommend a number between 4 and 6 for normal scenarios and 3 and 7 including edge cases with 2 and 8 being so out of line numbers that something needs to be done immediately.

Only 1 group of cooks is needed for the entire business (multiple bakeries). Number of cooks in the group need to be as many as number of bakeries.

Likewise, only 1 group of helpers is needed for the entire business, having same number of helpers as number of cooks.

By having a group of cooks you have certain advantages, including:
    _ If a particular cook is absent on a day or resign from job altogether your business dont come to a halt.

    _ You can use a cook to keep an eye on other cooks. Its very probable that you - the business owner - yourself is not an expert in cooking.

    _ A senior cook can boost moral of other worker cooks, and can also train trainee cooks

    _ The senior cook can also resolve minor issues between other cooks.

To effectively run the scheme you need absolute minimum of 3 tactical sub-units, which in case of bakery business means 3 bakeries. Comfortable numbers for this is 4, 5 and 6. 7 is at edge of what is manageable. 

In order to properly utilize a group-leader (your senior cook is a group-leader), since he is working himself too, not just leading, give him between 2 and 4 other worker cooks, and 1 to 2 trainees if trainees are at all present, to lead. If you have more than 5 cooks you have to have more than 1 senior cook.

Note that the senior cook will have other cooks in his command, but not any helper, although the cooks will be working in close co-ordination with them (helpers will wash pots, pans etc and do loading and stirring etc work).

Each salesman will be in command of the supervisor of his bakery, means the supervisor of a bakery will be group-leader of the salesmen of the bakery. Since salesmen will be the only workers working in a bakery (they will do sweeping, cleaning, loading etc themselves) the supervisor of a bakery will command all the staff of a bakery.

All of the supervisors will be under command of the business man who invest in and run the group-of-bakeries. The businessman will also directly command the senior cook and the senior helper.  

Techniques and Situations

One size never fit all, one technique dont work in all situations.

At the other extreme - its highly inefficient to have a different size for each, different technique for each situation. Dangerously, mission-losely too in-efficient. 

You can learn only a few techniques that you can effectively use. You cannot learn many,  because you cannot manage that large a set, nobody can.

You have to generalize situations - group situations having same properties in classes.

Match one technique with one class of situations, another with another class and so on. Which technique you match with which class, is your policy.

Make a policy and stick to it. Use broad strokes so you can adjust & learn without changing the core.

You will be trust-worthy.