It's definitely important that you consider the composition of your team as well... it is very easy to derail yourself, fall off topic, and not get anything done if you get a non-productive team mix.
@Comicality, Sense 8 was created by J. Michael Straczynski as well. He's one of my favorite writers, as he created my favorite Science Fiction show, Babylon 5. (He also wrote the first Thor movie, a cool twinky action movie, Ninja Assassin, and other things). He kind of proved the viability of story arc's in TV again. You can see the effect it had on Star Trek Deep Space Nine... the first 3 seasons were "show of the week". Then suddenly the rest of the series had a big war story arc... just like concurrently running Babylon 5.
For myself, I rely on feedback from @Cia and occasionally someone else, if I'm testing genre stuff.