How the growing Grafana Observability team restructured themselves successfully

Over the past year, the Grafana Observability team underwent significant restructuring to address challenges posed by its rapid growth and expanded responsibilities. This process involved splitting a larger team into three specialized squads—Observability Metrics, Observability Logs & Traces, and Observability Experience—to enhance focus, engagement, and autonomy. The restructuring aimed to improve job satisfaction, performance, and collaboration while maintaining high-quality project outcomes and community engagement. The approach emphasized team-driven solutions, which included defining problems and goals via a design document, utilizing a virtual whiteboard for brainstorming, exploring multiple proposals, and voting on the final structure. The successful implementation led to improved team dynamics, clearer career progression, and accelerated project delivery, with 100% of team members expressing satisfaction with the new structure. This restructuring highlights the importance of involving team members in decision-making processes to foster agility and long-term growth.