When I first joined my long lasting project, there were over 60 people on it. We were broken down into assorted teams. But if you paid attention, you pretty much would know everyone on the whole project. Might not interact directly with each one. But you would at least know them.
After a while, the project downsized a couple times. The steady state seemed to be 40+ people. Upwards of 45 team members. I still knew just about everyone on the team. Then I branched over to a future project that is to be built. Met a lot of people. Did not spend long on the project. But there were many hands. It did not feel like a unified team. I guess maybe because it wasn't.
Now I am on a huge project. There are 250 to 300 people total. I worked once on a project this big. But I knew almost all the people on that prior huge project. This time I just know my team of 7 or 8. We are very compartmentalized. It is kind of weird. Really focused on our specific task in the system.
The jury is not out whether this localized model is better or not. I will find out. Just an observation.
