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Collaboration Overload Is Killing Productivity
Nicolas Cava
Edited onEdited on Aug 15, 2025
Reading timeReading time: 1 minute
Stop the collaboration overload.
Collaboration has exploded. Up 50%+ over the past decade—eating 85% of the average workweek.
That's not productivity. That's paralysis.
What we need:
- Small, independent, distributed teams
- Ruthless execution
- Less communication, not more
Returning to the office? It'll only make this worse.
Brooks' Law explains why:
n(n – 1) / 2 → the number of communication channels in a team.
If you have 50 people on one project: 50 × (50 – 1) / 2 = 1,225 channels.
More people ≠ more progress. It often means:
- Slower decisions
- More conflict
- Communication overhead
- Longer onboarding
- Bottlenecks everywhere
Before you add headcount, ask:
How will more people help? How will more people hurt?
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