Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

McChrystal commanded US special operations in Iraq and the book is his account of discovering that his enemy — decentralised, networked, fast — was organised for the problem his traditional hierarchy was not. The solution was to rebuild the US force as a "team of teams" — small autonomous units connected by shared information and shared purpose rather than by command. For product direction the transfer is direct: modern product organisations face a structurally similar problem, and McChrystal's specific description of how a hierarchy makes the shift is more useful than the abstract "empowered teams" literature. Read alongside Cagan's Empowered and Skelton's Team Topologies for complementary views. A book that survives its self-seriousness.