Balanced Teams - Get the Ratios Right

Team Ratios:

Start thinking six to twelve months ahead of your hiring needs and reset the ratios of Product Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers you think you need. This will be the first collaboration across the boundaries of the disciplines and will occur at a Director, VP, or even C-level.

Far too often do we hear that a company knows they need 30+ engineers but only has two PMs (they often don’t have a clear definition of what the “P” means), zero designers, and maybe one or two DevOps people. If this is accurate to your current situation then you are already behind. Start these conversations now.

We feel that better ratios that you should start to plan for are:

1 Designer, 1 Product Manager, 1 DevOps Engineer, and 4-8 Software Engineers

The variance in software engineers is based on the technicality of the product. Getting the CTO to move headcount from engineers only to a more Balanced Team ratio will not only increase output it will also increase the value of that output. Guaranteed! :)