Teamwork takes more time and often more resources than individual work. Teams have increased communication demands, conflicts to manage, and meetings to run. So the benefits of using teams have to exceed the costs, and that’s not always possible. There are three tests you can apply to help you know whether the work of your group would be better done in teams. First, can the work be done better by more than one person? Simple tasks that don’t require diverse input are probably better left to individuals.

Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals? Using teams makes sense when there is interdependence among tasks—the success of the whole depends on the success of each one, and the success of each one depends on the success of the others. They are groups whose performance is the aggregate summation of their individual performances.