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Product & Management Stage

Small Teams, Big Impact – Teamwork That Works

September 18, 2025 11:40 AM

Long Lecture

🇬🇧 English

Bratysława 1

About

Teamwork isn't always smooth, is it? That's why we help you discover practical strategies to:

boost communication, streamline knowledge sharing and stay on top of what truly matters in teams of up to five people.

We'll cover essential tools, smart note-taking habits, and the dos & don’ts that make or break collaboration.

Speakers

Photo of Aga Naplocha, Lead UX Consultant & Coder at Adobe, Co-CEO of Design Practice

Lead UX Consultant & Coder at Adobe, Co-CEO of Design Practice

Photo of Paulina Kacprzak, Co-CEO of Design Practice

Paulina Kacprzak

Co-CEO of Design Practice at Independent

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From the recording

Talk in brief

In this WaysConf 2025 presentation, Aga Naplocha and Paulina Kacprzak, Co-CEOs of Design Practice, share how they successfully manage and scale a highly productive five-person remote team. Transitioning from a duo to a small agency, they faced challenges in remote collaboration, generational gaps, and communication. To align their team, they utilized external coaching, CliftonStrengths (Gallup) assessments to map individual talents, and structured meeting frameworks. By minimizing synchronous meetings and relying on asynchronous tools like Loom, Notion, Slack, and ClickUp, they maintain high efficiency without micromanagement. They emphasize the power of small gestures, informal interactions, and step-by-step onboarding to build a culture of trust and shared ownership.

Key takeaways

01
Leverage External Coaching for Alignment
When remote teams feel out of sync, bringing in an external coach can help facilitate open feedback and establish structured goal-setting frameworks. This relieves interpersonal tension and aligns founders' expectations with co-workers' needs.
Watch from 7:01
02
Map Team Talents with Gallup Assessments
Utilizing CliftonStrengths assessments helps identify innate talents and potential friction points within a team. Understanding these profiles allows leaders to resolve talent clashes constructively and leverage individual strengths for faster problem-solving.
Watch from 8:33
03
Minimize Meetings and Work Asynchronously
To protect deep work, organizations should replace unnecessary meetings with asynchronous communication tools like Loom and Notion. When meetings are required, using standardized templates ensures everyone stays aligned without wasting time.
Watch from 13:45
04
Onboard Gradually to Ensure Cultural Fit
Expanding a team step-by-step through short-term projects or internships allows both parties to evaluate alignment before committing to full-time roles. This gradual approach ensures new hires share the company's core values and communication style.
Watch from 5:01
05
Foster Belonging Through Informal Interactions
Informal conversations and small gestures outside of structured work tasks are critical for building a strong team spirit and preventing turnover. Investing in casual meetups, remote social events, and shared positive feedback channels strengthens the sense of belonging.
Watch from 21:01

Video chapters

2:24From Duo to a Five-Person Team
Aga and Paulina recount their journey from meeting in 2016 to launching Design Practice and expanding their team to handle growth.
5:53Navigating Generational Gaps and Remote Work
The speakers discuss the complexities of managing a fully remote team and understanding the communication preferences of Gen Z.
7:01Aligning Expectations Through Team Workshops
The founders explain how hiring an external coach helped them establish open feedback loops and set SMART goals.
8:33Resolving Friction with CliftonStrengths
Aga and Paulina share how mapping their team's Gallup talents helped them understand behavioral differences and resolve workflow clashes.
13:45Establishing a Lean Meeting Framework
The presentation outlines the specific, template-driven meetings the team uses to minimize synchronous time and maximize deep work.
17:00Powering Asynchronous Collaboration
Paulina details the tech stack, including Loom, Notion, Slack, and ClickUp, that enables seamless asynchronous operations.
19:38Building Team Spirit with Small Gestures
The speakers emphasize the importance of informal interactions, in-person meetups, and positive feedback channels in maintaining morale.
23:21Audience Q&A on Trust and Strategy
The founders answer audience questions regarding goal setting, managing trust issues, resolving co-founder disagreements, and handling workload.

Read edited transcript highlights

These concise notes were edited from automatic captions and checked against the talk structure. They are not a verbatim transcript.

The Cost Efficiency of Small Teams

Research indicates that large teams do not necessarily complete projects significantly faster than small teams. While a team of 32 might finish a project only one week quicker than a team of four, the larger team is seven times more expensive. This reality motivated us to keep our core team at Design Practice small, focusing on highly optimized workflows and tools to achieve major business results with just five people.

Watch from 0:16

Resolving Co-Founder Talent Clashes

Our Gallup CliftonStrengths assessments revealed fascinating dynamics between our personal working styles. For instance, Paulina's top talent is 'Woo,' meaning she thrives on networking and bringing people together, while my top talent is 'Maximizer,' which pushes me to execute everything at an exceptionally high standard. When planning our company's birthday party, my Maximizer trait resisted because we lacked the resources to make it flawless, whereas Paulina's Woo trait prioritized the human connection of gathering. Recognizing these distinct drivers allowed us to communicate openly and find a healthy compromise.

Watch from 11:33

Structuring Yearly Summary Meetings

We utilize a dedicated FigJam template for our yearly summary meetings, which serves as a comprehensive diary of each team member's professional journey. In these sessions, we review the past year, set SMART goals for the upcoming year, and adjust responsibilities as needed. Because each year of cooperation is documented in a single row, we can literally watch the long-term development and growth of our co-workers, ensuring both the founders and the employees remain perfectly aligned on expectations.

Watch from 16:08

Streamlining Projects with ClickUp and FigJam

To avoid planning repetitive projects from scratch, we built a centralized template center in FigJam containing all possible project-related tasks. When launching a new initiative, we simply extract the relevant tasks from this master template and import them into ClickUp, our daily task management system. This combination allows us to quickly assign responsibilities and set deadlines without wasting cognitive energy on administrative setup.

Watch from 18:52

Rebuilding Trust and Resolving Conflict

During the Q&A, an audience member asked how to handle a loss of trust within a team. We believe that trust is the absolute foundation of our business, and working without it is counterproductive. If trust begins to erode, our primary strategy is to bring in an external coach to facilitate a structured, objective conversation. This external perspective helps both sides move past assumptions, confront the root issues directly, and determine if alignment is still possible.

Watch from 25:31

The Power of Autonomy over Micromanagement

One of our team members, Anna, shared her perspective from the audience, confirming that our culture of trust and mutual understanding inspires greater commitment than micromanagement. When employees are freed from micromanagement and given genuine ownership over their domains, they naturally feel more responsible for the outcomes. This environment encourages team members to proactively contribute and go above and beyond, proving that trust is far more effective than constant surveillance.

Watch from 36:32

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