[HN Gopher] The Skill of Org Design ___________________________________________________________________ The Skill of Org Design Author : impostervt Score : 269 points Date : 2021-10-06 11:58 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (commoncog.com) (TXT) w3m dump (commoncog.com) | blueyes wrote: | I want to put in a plug for Cedric. He is consistently one of the | smartest writers about tech online. His writings about | naturalistic decision making have changed the way I think about a | lot of things in business. | | https://commoncog.com/blog/the-tacit-knowledge-series/ | Ahan515 wrote: | Wow, MPI gets Nobel prizes in a row! | xivzgrev wrote: | This article reminded me of a group I founded in college. I also | was motivated to ensure it lived on, which it has. | | 4 things worked there 1) it was a group to help people get jobs, | which is an ongoing market need 2) it demonstrated success | quickly and provided a template for that success, so people were | motivated to invest in keeping it going 3) we made early cultural | decisions that selected the right kind of people 4) we set out | clear 5 year goals, and had every president update the 5 year | plan and their own 1 year plan. | ashika wrote: | people will seemingly hop aboard anything that gives them | authority over other people. i am reminded of that scientology | grade chart that leaked a while back[1]. the end result of each | training was usually the ability to give the training to others. | so while all orgs obviously want to remain on a positive tipping | point with the general membership rising to serve hierarchical | functions over time, scientology teachings seem to exist mainly | an opportunity to advance relative to other scientology members. | | [1] http://scientologymyths.info/definitions/gradechart.gif | j16sdiz wrote: | In the press release: | | >> "This concept for catalysis is as simple as it is ingenious, | and the fact is that many people have wondered why we didn't | think of it earlier," says Johan Aqvist, who is chair of the | Nobel Committee for Chemistry. | divan wrote: | Such a great read. | | I'm trying to build a non profit org in a country with almost no | culture of non profits and with zero experience in org design. | Most of articles or podcasts on running non profits seems to be | all the same - define vision/mission/strategy, plan budget, | motivate people, do effective communication etc. | | But this article is the first I found that actually provides some | framework of thinking about the org design to me. Very | refreshing. What should I read/watch/listen next (except links | mentioned in the article)? Maybe even something specific to | creating/growing non profits? | rawgabbit wrote: | As a contrarian, I think the author's advice is actually wrong. | Organizations do not exist in a vacuum. They are not an end in | itself. The purpose of an organization is to fulfill a mission. | The organization should be designed to execute its mission in | the most cost effective and transparent manner. | | With Non-profits, your customers are your donors. Who is | funding you (sales)? What do they want (features & results)? | How do you show that you are spending their money wisely | (metrics & governance)? The organization is nothing more than | people put in place to solidify and execute those needs. | bsedlm wrote: | > The organization should be designed to execute its mission | in the most cost effective and transparent manner. | | I argue that this describes a specific type of organization | in a specific environment (context). namely a business | organization in a capitalist market. | | There exist other types of organizations. (However I may be | blurring the line between organization and institution) | xivzgrev wrote: | The author emphasizes context a lot. After you've read | resources here, maybe get intros to entrepreneurs in your area | who successfully built larger companies, and how they iterated. | What was the context they operated in, and what's relevant to | your context? | KingOfCoders wrote: | I have two principles: | | If possible do not split responsibilty between teams. Give | responsibilities (e.g. security) as a hole without splitting. | | Think about what discussion you want to have in the leadership | meetings, then decide who needs to sit at the table. | dr_dshiv wrote: | I'm really impressed with this article and the others linked. The | bits on professional services and thinking backwards were | extremely helpful! | chewyshine wrote: | Notice how there are no clear criteria for evaluation in this | space? No math. No models. Just loose concepts strung together | with words and sprinkled with calls to authority (e.g., Andy | Grove) to add credibility. No evidence. No science. | | As an organizational "scientist" it's amazing to me that | organizations are ubiquitous and yet we know so little about how | to construct good ones. Software design is in a better state IMO | but not by much. | | Here's a simple question that should be answerable in any | approach to org design. What's the optimal *span of control* for | management at each level in the organizational hierarchy? If you | can't answer this question, you can't "design" an organization. | sixdimensional wrote: | Actually, there is a entire field dedicated to this | (disclaimer: I studied it at uni, plus CS and info systems) - | organizational studies [1]. It has subdomains such as | organizational structure/models, behavior, communication, etc. | Much of it backed by theories, studies and more, ranging in | disciplines. | | Time and motion studies (for example) were part of the | scientific management revolution for industrial management [2]. | There have been both qualitative and quantitative studies of | all kinds of things - organizational forms, people networks | (things like, Dunbar's number[3]), power distribution (ex. work | of Pfeffer), etc. I could go on. | | I do think we are reliving an era of interest in management by | data and metrics, much like that of the industrial revolution | and scientific management. Nothing wrong with using science and | quantitative measures to optimize, but any human who has been | subject to purely management by quantitative objective will | likely tell you it often becomes.. rather, inhumane. This is | often what led to automation, I feel - to remove the human | element that was crushed by industrial efficiency. | | I suspect this is why the qualitative balance is important (and | no less scientific - science can be logic not just metrics | right?). | | My two cents... | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_studies | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_and_motion_study | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number | throwoutway wrote: | OP said they were an organizational scientist, so I would | assume they know this. However the article rather | hypothesizes and references recent books like Working | Backwards, rather than long-established theories about org- | design (like Mintzberg, who dates to the 60s). I've studied | many of these and they are very thorough (though none are | perfect) | | I had a similar thought on another commoncog.com post. The | author didn't seem to research deeply before postulating | opinions. Looks like this site allows members to post so I | don't know if it's the same person | shadowsun7 wrote: | https://commoncog.com/blog/the-hierarchy-of-practical- | eviden... | | I would ask the OP a simple question: what organisations | have they built, and where are they now? | | Longer, but establishes the epistemology of the blog: | https://commoncog.com/blog/practice-as-the-bar-for-truth/ | and https://commoncog.com/blog/four-theories-of-truth/ | throwoutway wrote: | Sorry but providing three more links to your blog does | not contribute to the threaded discussion. If you'd like | to ask OP that question, you can ask OP on OP's comment. | | Otherwise, I'm still not sure why you don't include both | (well established) theories, in addition to your own | practice in your post. | Closi wrote: | > Here's a simple question that should be answerable in any | approach to org design. What's the optimal _span of control_ | for management at each level in the organizational hierarchy? | If you can 't answer this question, you can't "design" an | organization. | | Of course you can design an organization without knowing the | optimal span of control at each level, just as you can design a | logo without math and scientific models. The answer anyway will | just be 'it depends, and span of control varies not only | between different businesses but also different roles and even | different individuals'. | | Lots of design is done via intuition and experience rather than | concrete engineering anyway, and OD is clearly an area where it | is more about understanding the goals of an organisation and | building a people strategy around it rather than perfect | mathematical optimality. | ethbr0 wrote: | Or, in other words -- you show me a calculated optimal span | of control, and I can show you an individual at my company | that would wreck it (either as too broad or too narrow). | | Org design suffers from the same problem as economics and | psychology: you're designing based on a fundamental discrete | unit (a person) that's incredibly variable. | | Except unlike the other two, you're typically not dealing in | large enough numbers that you can handwave away differences | and substitute averages. | | Furthmore, any hierarchical org (which is to say, all, either | formally or informally) exacerbates the problem in that you | have some (variable!) individuals with even greater ability | to influence the sum. | | Which isn't to say it's hopeless, but is to say (to your | point) that any approach needs flexibility and intuition. | | Or as the author puts it: _" As a result, you cannot predict | how the humans in your organisation will react to your | changes -- not with perfect accuracy, at least. So the nature | of org design demands that you iterate -- that you introduce | some set of changes, watch how those changes ripple out in | organisational behaviour, and then either roll-back the | change, or tweak in response to those observations."_ | akomtu wrote: | Models need input and there isn't much knowable input in modern | organisations. A unit of organisation is a person with complex | internal state. Two units of type M could've competed for | another unit of type F and one of them has won, while the other | is secretly sabotaging work of the first - an example of | chaotic to an outsider behavior because of hidden state. When | all sorts of interactions are allowed, particles of | organisation interact in all sorts of bizarre ways. It's hard | to model a gas where particles have memory, long distance | interactions with ten types of forces, mutate into other | particles, teleport back and forth according to God knows what | reasons and so on. We either resort to making only very general | predictions or we cool down the particles, restrict their | freedom to bare minimum and make them predictable. Rogue | regimes do exactly this: the only interaction they allow is a | strictly top-down "who fears whom", so everything is local and | predictable. | beaconstudios wrote: | But we do have a science of organisation design; management | cybernetics are 70 years old, and as this post hints at, the | field of complex systems theory (also 70) applies to | organisations. But these fields don't find context-independent | answers like the one you asked for; an extremely important | trait of systems engineering (as, again, was mentioned in the | post under "form-context fit") is that systems have fitness for | a specific environment or context. Answers are adaptive and | must be approached in-context, not declared to be canon in some | "objective" scientific whitepaper. | | If it's math you're after, look at Control Theory or Nonlinear | Dynamics. They work well for engineering purposes, but good | luck modelling individual human behaviour accurately, let alone | mathematically. | burlesona wrote: | I would argue that organizations are complex adaptive systems | and thus there is no optimal span that holds for all or even | most organizations at all or even most levels. As a solution, | smart organizations should build in feedback loops and allow | rapid experimentation and iteration to evolve the spans so they | respond well to the current conditions at each level and each | point in time. | | Note that setting up an organization to be so responsive and | adaptive is itself a difficult organizational design problem. | bsedlm wrote: | > Notice how there are no clear criteria for evaluation in this | space? No math. No models. Just loose concepts strung together | with words and sprinkled with calls to authority (e.g., Andy | Grove) to add credibility. No evidence. No science. | | Indeed, this is a very good observation from which many ideas | occur to me: | | Which one do I prefer? | | Is one obviously better? (I don't think this is a good | question: It's like asking which is better, an API reference (a | math textbook with a long list of theorems and definitions) or | an API tutorial (a math textbook which holds your hand and | explains "intuitively"). It depends on what you need). | | Isn't it the case that initial explanations (explorations into | a new topic) are like this at first, and over time (usually | through work spanning multiple generations) the theories become | more mathematical? | | All in all I wonder about the difference between these two | contrasting approaches towards understanding. And I wonder | about it in such abstract (philosophical?) terms that the | specific "organizational design" is just an instance of what | I'm curious about; which is the different ways to explain the | same things and other ways to approach "understanding" in | general. | jsjohnst wrote: | > Software design is in a better state IMO but not by much. | | Looking at all the crap software being built today, I am not | sure I agree even with the caveat of "not by much". | photochemsyn wrote: | A lot of data structures from compsci like trees, graphs, | lists, seem suited to form the basis of mathematical modeling | of organizational structures, with the goal of optimizing for | particular cases. | | For example, in modeling an industrial system like a chemical | refinery / synthesis unit for optimal throughput, one could | also model the human organizational structure needed to safely | and efficiently operate that system. Say there were 10 major | steps/processes being overseen; failure of any one could be | catastrophic. So, perhaps each unit gets its own manager with | veto power over the whole process if their unit is down (a flat | structure at this level), and each manager oversees a | hierarchically-structured team (a tree at this level, perhaps | experience-based). | | Other organizations would need a completely different | structure, but it should be structured around the fundamental | goal. Thus, the concept of 'universal organization designer' | might be so broad as to be not very useful, i.e. specialization | in design domains is probably important. | | I recall this coming up in a discussion of why the optimal | organizational structure for Tesla is very different from that | for SpaceX for example, so just moving 'the best managers' from | one to the other wouldn't work out. | afarrell wrote: | Before demanding that, first come up with metrics for the | optimal attributes of a marriage. What is the optimal number of | loads of laundry to do each month? The proper number of silly | dances to invent? | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy | RayVR wrote: | This is a ridiculous critique of the argument. Just because | everything can't be quantified doesn't mean we can't quantify | some things. | | I worked in quant finance for many years so I'm very familiar | with low signal to noise in complex systems. You can't throw | your hands up simply because you'll never capture everything | in your models. | | This field is so far from my areas of expertise but I imagine | there are lots of smart people investigating and putting | structure around these questions. | nzmsv wrote: | Taleb makes an argument in Black Swan that a bad model can | do more harm than no model at all, and that "we can't throw | our hands up" is not a valid excuse either: sometimes | that's exactly the right call. | afarrell wrote: | Right. It is also false to say there are no useful numbers | in this space. For example: Dunbar's number is 150. | | But it is misleading to expect an employee to maintain | relationships with 150 people--they also have a family and | friends. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number | pintxo wrote: | From the linked wikipedia: | | > However, enormous 95% confidence intervals (4-520 and | 2-336, respectively) implied that specifying any one | number is futile. | clairity wrote: | what's more interesting about dunbar's number is that it | suggests a potential maximum for the size of an effective | organization (say, 520) rather than pinpointing an | optimum. the idea of a maximum like this appeals to | intuition, so it's worth studying more (and more | quantitatively), but opposes ambition, which is probably | why we don't have plentiful research in this area | already. | rocqua wrote: | > You can't throw your hands up simply because you'll never | capture everything in your models. | | You can however, decide that the key drivers in your domain | are essentially impossible to capture quantitatively and | decide not to model the domain scientifically. This applies | especially well to cases where 'tacit knowledge' is | important. Because that knowledge is hard to formulate, let | alone formalize, it is really hard to quantize. | jancsika wrote: | Do regular blood tests on a randomized sample of married | couples and measure the stress levels. | | Once you've found the couple with the lowest overall levels, | book them on a touring circuit so audiences can ask them how | many silly dances they invented. Since the couple doesn't | know whether that's a source of their happiness or not, it | won't really get us any closer to an answer. But at least the | couple's resulting stress from the tour and impending marital | problems will teach the audience about the limits of their | method of inquiry. | Grakel wrote: | It'll be the couple with the highest income to work hours | ratio. | pc86 wrote: | Below a certain [unknown] ratio, absolutely. Above it, | I'm not so sure. | brutusborn wrote: | Thanks for the link. | | I think there can be a useful middle ground, where "fuzzy" | descriptions are used with models to explain strategies that | are developed organically. | | I empathise with the OP on the lack of modelling in this | space. I think it shows a lack of maturity of the field since | good, simple models are usually used to produce fundamental | understanding in a field. | korla wrote: | When you can't measure what's important, what you can measure | becomes important. | ethbr0 wrote: | The more drawn out / harmful form is: when you mandate that | only the measureable is valid, and something is hard (or | impossible) to measure, everyone comes up with reasons it's | not important. | atoav wrote: | If we talk about organizational structure, the one real | question is whether you can just look at the structure and | figure out a organisations success just based on that. | | My feeling is that this could be a good way to filter out | highly dysfunctional organizations. However I don't think you | can find successful ones that easily, let alone come up with an | magical organizational structure that automatically leads to | success. | | That might be because there are a lot of tiny details that | might shape a organization much more than the pure structure of | departments and roles. Let's say organization A and | organization B have the same structure and do the same thing in | the same field, but organization A has a good HR department | which manages to attract good people and have them work for | decades at the company, while organization B has a bad HR | department, hires incompetent, fraudulent and downright nasty | people, who don't stay on the job for long - wouldn't this make | such a huge difference that differences stemming from the pure | structure of the organization would be drowned out? | | Of course you could now think about how a organizational | structure could prevent this from happening, and maybe with the | right structure and people checking each others decisions the | likelyhood of such a bad outcome could be mitigated - but never | fully. | webmaven wrote: | _> Here 's a simple question that should be answerable in any | approach to org design. What's the optimal span of control for | management at each level in the organizational hierarchy? If | you can't answer this question, you can't "design" an | organization._ | | This seems so wrong to me. It is the equivalent of stating that | unless you can specify the values of all the hyperparameters up | front, you can't claim to 'design' a neural network | architecture. | | All you really need to iterate on (this aspect of) the design | of an organization is a way to tell when the span of control is | too large and when it is too small. | q_andrew wrote: | I think this might be roughly what you're looking for: | https://codahale.com/work-is-work/ | | But this author is concerned more with 'productivity' rather | than longevity or interpersonal relationships. | dasil003 wrote: | IMHO this is wishful thinking. There are thousands and | thousands of questions you could pose in this way, each with a | range of answers depending on many details specific to the job | to be done. Even just designing a single experiment that is not | subject to biases of artificial metrics or incumbent market | momentum is incredibly difficult. | | For instance your span of control question depends on how much | individual bandwidth is needed between the levels, which in | turn depends on the nature of the work and how it interacts | with partner functions and whether it can be routinized or | whether there is an aspect of creative problem solving. | | It's a pleasant fantasy to imagine we could get definitive | answers using science but it presumes there is a universal | maximum when in fact there are many local maxima depending on | goals and the individual strengths and weaknesses you're | actually dealing with. And even then org structure is a pretty | blunt instrument which is always a huge tradeoff. All orgs rely | on extra-organizational effort to address critical problems, | whether it be through formal working groups or just individual | hustle and resourcefulness. | mirchiseth wrote: | This 2016 longish post on Functional vs Unit Orgs by Steven | Sinofsky is pretty good on different types of organizations. He | shares examples from Apple, Google and his days at Microsoft | being a senior leader. Even mentions another HN thread | https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/functional-versus-unit... | warpech wrote: | That's a very intresting topic for a growing startup. I tried to | find books about org design for startups but couldn't find any. | My conclusion was that it's because "it depends" is only | reasonable advice. But maybe there are some books that you | recommend? | joekinley wrote: | I can strongly recommend The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. | Gerber. I read it years ago, and it helped me plenty to | understand basic organizational setup | andrewingram wrote: | Alongside the other suggestions, "Org Design for Design Orgs" | is a book that got me interested in the topic. Whilst it's | focused on how to structure and scale design teams, a lot of it | is transferable to other disciplines. | michael-ax wrote: | ask your suppliers and customers? | wmorein wrote: | Not a book but an article based on some experience. This reads | a bit more definitive than I actually feel about the subject | but I do tend to think that this design is actually best for | software/services startups. | | https://riverin.substack.com/p/the-canonical-startup-org-str... | | There are a couple links to other articles and book on the | subject in there too. | jannyfer wrote: | I haven't read the full book, but I found "Situational | Leadership" a very helpful concept that would have taken me | years to learn if I went through trial & error. | jmpz wrote: | I found Team Topologies to be a good resource on this. | https://teamtopologies.com/book | peterbell_nyc wrote: | +1 for Team Topologies! | nzmsv wrote: | I was nodding along and then had to stop and think. Are Amazon | and Netflix actually good organizational examples to emulate? | allenu wrote: | "When running the Vietnam office, we had many other business- | related problems to deal with; building consensus wasn't | something that I always had the time to do. So the way I ran | certain org changes was to: 1. Get a sense for team | receptivity for that org change, balanced against the necessity | of the org change. If I sensed that the team would be resistant | to the change, I would: 2. Figure out how much I had | left in the 'credibility/trust' bank, and if I wanted to burn | that capital. 3. If possible, find a smaller, more | reversible version of the org change to introduce first. | 4. Use disasters to my full advantage (people are usually more | receptive to trying new ways of doing things in the wake of | something painful). 5. Strategically allow certain | things to blow up so that I could exploit the pain to introduce | org change, as per 4) above. 6. Or build consensus; | consensus was always the best, if most time consuming, option." | | This is useful, and incredibly candid, information about what | actions are taken to shape organizations, especially point 5. | It's great to see it written out like this. | hef19898 wrote: | Confirms my experience so far. it does raise the question so | what alternatives managers (I'll not go as far as calling them | leaders) or organizations with no capital in the trust are left | with. Seeing at it from that perspective shades a different | light on some of the re-orgs I went through, especially those | everybody wondered why disaster X was avoided despite being | visible from miles away. | [deleted] | benjohnson1707 wrote: | You might want to look into the works of Elliot Jacques, who came | up with apparently rigorous concepts about hierarchy and | management since the 70s. Wrote a bunch of books. Interesting | stuff, I find. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-10-06 23:00 UTC)