RAY OGLETHORPE President AOL Technologies | satellite teams | vice president | America Online Dulles
What Makes Teams Work?
by
American Way StaffRAY OGLETHORPE
President
AOL Technologies, America Online
Dulles, Virginia
"What's the secret to a great team? Think small. Ideally, your team
should have seven to nine people. If you have more than 15 or 20,
you're dead: The connections between team members are too hard to
make.
"Two and a half years ago, aol was feeling hamstrung at the
technologies level. There was a bottleneck at the top. We decided
to make that division team-based, and created core teams that were
empowered to make decisions about products. It was the best thing
that we could have done. The core teams spun off satellite teams
that focused on specific projects, with specific goals.
"The management challenge is to understand that the people who
report to you may get most of their direction from their team
leaders. And people can be on more than one team, of course. It's
the manager's job to think about whether this person is being
stretched too thin, or that person needs special training.
"Size is the key. Have the smallest number of people possible on
each team. Another rule: no delegates. You don't want people who
have to take the team's ideas back to someone else to get
authorization. You want the decision makers."
Ray Oglethorpe leads AOL Technologies, which includes the network
that supports AOL's member services worldwide, as well as host- and
client-software development. He is responsible for maintaining and
developing AOL's core technologies and operational resources and
for the company's integrated-systems architecture.
JEANIE DUCK
Senior Vice President
The Boston Consulting Group
Atlanta and Miami
"Most teams are so eager to start thinking about work plans and
output that they don't spend nearly as much time as they should
setting up.
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