Research
Groups
How many people a tool or institution can serve before it stops working for them.
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How many people can a tool serve?
Dunbar’s number is contested, but the finding behind it is not: human social capacity is finite and layered. Tools that ignore the layers work against the grain.
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A group is its own worst enemy
Clay Shirky took Wilfred Bion’s study of therapy groups and applied it to software. Groups are a runtime phenomenon, so tools for groups have to plan for how groups fail.