Agile Team Size: Striking the Right Balance for Efficiency

lynda1951
May 16
2 min read

In Agile development, team size plays a pivotal role in determining the

effectiveness and efficiency of delivery. While Agile values individuals and interactions, it's often the structure and composition of teams that determine whether those values can be realized or hindered. In this blog, we'll explore:

What defines a non-optimal Agile team size
Why team size matters
Best practices in determining Agile team size
How all of this aligns with SAFe® (Scaled Agile Framework) for Teams

What Is a Non-Optimal Agile Team Size?

Agile teams are often considered most productive when they are small and cross-functional. However, teams can fall into two traps:

1. Too Small (≤ 3 people)

A team that is too small often lacks the necessary cross-functional skills to deliver end-to-end value. For example:

Missing roles (e.g., no tester or UX designer)
Risk of burnout due to overload
Lack of diversity in perspectives

2. Too Large (≥ 10 people)

Large teams tend to suffer from:

Increased communication overhead (Brooks’s Law: adding more people to a late project makes it later)
Coordination complexity and diluted ownership
Reduced accountability

As team size increases, the number of communication channels grows exponentially (n(n−1)/2). For a team of 9, that’s 36 communication paths. Compare that with only 10 paths for a 5-member team.

Best Practices for Agile Team Size

The sweet spot for Agile team size is generally considered to be 5 to 9 members, as recommended by Scrum, SAFe®, and other Agile frameworks.

Why 5–9 Members?

Small enough to maintain high bandwidth communication
Large enough to be cross-functional
Encourages tighter collaboration and faster decision-making

Best Practices:

Cross-functionality is non-negotiable – Include all roles needed to deliver a valuable increment (e.g., developers, testers, UX).
Balance workload – Avoid overloading a few team members due to role gaps.
Stable team structure – Avoid frequent reshuffling which harms team cohesion.
Use team topologies – Form teams around business domains or value streams, not technology silos.

How Does This Tie into SAFe for Teams?

In SAFe®, Agile teams are the foundation of the Agile Release Train (ART). SAFe recommends:

Team size of 5–11 individuals (typically 7 plus/minus 2)
Each team must be cross-functional, empowered, and able to deliver full increments of value
Teams operate within Program Increments (PIs) and collaborate closely through Scrum of Scrums or Team Syncs “Agile teams in SAFe are self-organizing and self-managing. They define, build, test, and deploy software to deliver working, tested increments.”