Punching well above our weight in terms of pushing the boundaries of virtual reality and augmented reality as applied to engineering and construction is what we do well at Snobal.

It’s what we’ve always done well.

It is literally baked into our DNA. Working in an incredibly agile way, always iteratively and collaboratively with clients and with a focus on cross collaboration across disciplines and ideas. It has enabled Snobal to produce as the article says “…markedly more disruptive work than large ones[teams]”. 

But in the world of science and technology it can mean small teams can be underestimated.

Looking at more than 65 million scientific papers, patents, and software projects from the past six decades James Evans, a sociologist at the Staša Milojević who studies the history of science, we can see some reasons why. Evans found that

small teams are far more likely to introduce fresh, disruptive ideas that take science and technology in radically new directions…small teams fuel the future, generating ideas that, if they succeed, will be the source of big-team development.

Evans isn’t alone in this finding.

As reported in this The Atlantic article Indiana University Bloomington researcher Staša Milojević analyzed the titles of 20 million scientific papers and found a similar pattern.

So why are small teams more disruptive?

It’s a question that does not have a clear cut answer.

But the key learning’s we take from the article is that firstly big does not always mean better – especially when you’re talking about groundbreaking ideas and innovation in technology and science.

And secondly, that necessity ( for e.g restricted resources and time?) can sometimes truly be the mother of bold inventions.

Read the full article here on why small teams fuel innovation.