Teams

Teams are self-managing, autonomous groups of individuals who collaborate to achieve shared goals through coordinated action and collective decision-making.

In the context of Web3 and decentralized organizations, teams take on particular importance as the fundamental operational units that enable distributed coordination without requiring centralized control. Unlike traditional hierarchical teams that receive direction from management layers, decentralized teams maintain autonomy in determining how to achieve their objectives while coordinating with broader organizational networks through transparent practices and shared purpose alignment.

Teams in Decentralized Organizations

The DAO Primitives framework uses the term Cells to describe small autonomous teams that function as the basic organizational units within DAO networks. These teams typically consist of 3-8 people (fewer than 10) who work together at what the framework calls “collaboration scale” - where high-bandwidth, synchronous communication enables effective self-governance and adaptive problem-solving.

The shift from traditional teams to decentralized autonomous teams represents a fundamental change in how groups coordinate:

Traditional Teams:

  • Receive objectives and direction from hierarchical authority
  • Report progress upward through management chains
  • Operate with limited visibility into broader organizational context
  • Require approval for decisions outside defined scope

Decentralized Autonomous Teams:

  • Define their own approach to achieving purpose-aligned objectives
  • Document their state transparently for network-wide visibility
  • Make independent decisions within their domain of responsibility
  • Coordinate horizontally with other teams through clear interfaces

This autonomy combined with transparent coordination enables what [DAOs aren’t things… they are flows](../artifacts/dao-primitives-framework/network-evolution/DAOs aren’t things… they are flows..md) describes as “purpose-aligned networks” that can scale both efficiency and innovation simultaneously.

  • Cells - The DAO Primitives term for small autonomous teams
  • Coordination - The mechanisms through which teams align their activities
  • Collaboration - The scale and nature of teamwork
  • Governance - How teams make decisions and establish practices
  • Autonomy - The self-direction capacity that defines decentralized teams
  • DAOs - The network context within which autonomous teams operate

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