Research by the late J. Richard Hackman, who devoted much of his fifty-year career to understanding what drives team performance, shows why team design decisions are so important. Richardâs years of research led him to develop the â60â30â10 rule.â He found that the day-to-day âtweakingâ by team leaders and members only determines about 10 percent of performance. That 30 percent stems from the design at the launchâat least in teams that have a short life, such as the cockpit crews in commercial airlines. And a whopping 60 percent of performance is determined by what Richard called âpreworkâ: ongoing design choices including strategy, size, rewards, norms, routines, rituals, how work is divided up and coordinated, and who makes which decisions. For teams that endure for months and years, ongoing design choices pack an even bigger wallop.