In-Depth: Stable Or Fluid Teams? What Does The Science Say?

Recently, the concept of “fluid teams”, “dynamic reteaming” or “ad-hoc teaming” has gained traction in the Agile community. Although the concept has many different definitions, a characteristic they share is that members move in and out of a team during its lifetime.

However, decades of academic research into teams and workgroups have underscored the importance of team stability as a requirement for high performance. Although these studies did not compare stable teams versus fluid teams specifically, the most reliable theories we currently have to understand team development also seem to favor stability over fluidity.

In this episode, I explore the research in this area. Considering just how popular the notion of fluid teams has become, I think it is important to weigh the evidence that supports it or contradicts it.

Read the transcript of the episode here (including all references):
https://medium.com/the-liberators/in-depth-stable-or-fluid-teams-what-does-the-science-say-95833b0b91a2

Read an in-depth post about team cognition:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/why-great-scrum-teams-have-a-mind-of-their-own-2ba4d9d17918

Read an in-depth post about social cohesion:
https://medium.com/the-liberators/in-depth-how-coherence-and-cohesion-are-critical-to-scrum-f5ae1f3a1aef

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The music for episodes 91 and onward was written and produced for us by Basanite. The music for episodes 1-90 was acquired through Yummy Sounds. Post-production by Jasper Huiskamp.