Research has shown that stable, long-lived teams are more predictable and productive than teams that often have changes in their composition. This is why many Agile value creation approaches, like Scrum, advocate stable teams. Stable cross-functional, self-managing teams foster collaboration and focus. But this doesn’t mean you should or even can avoid changes in the team.
Changes in the team are inevitable. Their product may change, requiring people with different skills to join the team. People may leave the team to pursue new personal goals. The team may even dissolve.
In a team of 10 people, on average close to 1 to more than 5 leave the company every year. This number is highest in the USA and the UK and lower in the rest of the world. In any case, the chances that your team will be the same two years from now are very slim.
This is why the stable team is a myth in our fast-changing product world. While stability may be good for a team, we need to be able to handle changes well.
How to handle changes? I advise:
If you think about it, it would be strange if agile communities could not handle changes in teams.
Thank you for the links! I seems like unFIX is currently on the rise compared to Team Topologies. The other two links are also very interesting.