Depends what kind of technological advancement and what scale. New graphics tech for games? Sure, a small team might do better at communicating and getting features out quicker. A new, bigger kind of particle collider for high energy physics experiments? You need a good team just for one of the many of kinds of magnets, another just for a particular kind of detector, and so on for thousands of components (and advancements in software for all of the above) which need to be pushed forwards.