Groups and teamwork: size, skills, decisions, conflict and morale

Aim for 5 to 15 for a household group and 30 to 60 for a band, list every skill and train two people for each, decide who decides what in advance, write decisions down, and share food and work openly and fairly.

Part of Day Zero, the plan for an AI-related crisis that gets out of control. Why it exists. General information, not medical advice: how these guides are reviewed.

People rebuild; machines do not. Most plans fail not for lack of tools but because a group could not work together. These are the habits that keep groups together.

Size

• A household or family group of 5 to 15 can run a kitchen, a garden and a watch rota.
• A band of 30 to 60 can specialise: farmers, builders, medics, teachers. It is large enough to share risk and small enough that everyone knows everyone.
• Beyond 150 people, informal trust breaks down: you need written rules, councils and several settlements that cooperate.
• Several small groups that trade and share are stronger than one big group.

Skills

Make a skills list in the first week. Every group needs:

1. Water and sanitation
2. Health: first aid, midwifery, dentistry, herbs
3. Food: growing, preserving, cooking, animals
4. Shelter and fuel: building, repair, carpentry
5. Making and repair: metal, textiles, electrics
6. Teaching and records
7. Peace-keeping and mediation
8. Communication and navigation

Two people for each. Cross-train. Never let a skill live in one head.

Decisions

• Agree who decides what before a crisis: one person for watch and safety in an emergency, the group for big decisions (moving, sharing, rules).
• Hold a short daily meeting and a longer weekly one. Write the decisions down.
• Rotate roles so no one holds power for long.
• Decide the rules for sharing food and tools early and fairly. Perceived unfairness destroys groups faster than hunger.

Conflict

• Expect it. Tiredness, fear and grief make people short-tempered.
• A mediator nobody thinks is on one side. Listen to both, write the agreement, and review it.
• Consequences must be known in advance, proportionate and applied equally, including to leaders.
• Care for the people who do not work: children, elderly, sick. A group that abandons them loses its reason to exist.

Safety

• Watch rota, short, shared, with a simple signal. Do not leave anyone alone on watch for long.
• Strangers: meet in the open, offer water, ask what they need, and share news. Most people want what you want: safety.
• Do not rely on force to solve food problems: trade, labour and agreements last longer.

Morale

• Shared meals, a rest day, songs, stories, games for children. These are not extras; they are maintenance for the thing that holds everything else together.
• Honesty about supplies and danger. People can face bad news; they cannot trust a leader who hides it.
• Mourning: mark deaths properly.

Working with other groups

• Trade what you have too much of.
• Share knowledge (seed, medicine, repair).
• Agree on water, boundaries and paths.
• Exchange messengers and news regularly.