Optimum team size - now that's an interesting question. My unscientific opinion is that 5-7 people is optimum, but you have to have a good mix of skills and motivators. So teams - I call them cells - averaging 6 working in larger groups of 6 "organs" if you like give you 36 people arranged in a "body". That to me is the upper limit to 'team size', above that it breaks down fairly comprehensively. You can make larger groups of up to 200 "work" but they don't really work as a team, although they are more cohesive than 300. In my as yet untested theory 200 is your upper limit, but you can group teams of 200 into corporate bodies as big as you like as long as you don't exceed 200 in any one extended family of bodies. 200 is my limit because you can get to know 200 people by name. Thus you know your 36 key co-workers well, your 6 team mates very well but just enough of the 200 to keep you feeling "a part of the whole". Well that's my theory!
Here's the Wharton article that started me thinking.
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