Good question! Would also be very interested to know names of organizations with decentralized organic structures.
On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 7:52 AM, Alan Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > I have been doing some thinking about how design decisions get made, > both at my company and at others. For the most part, we have a > hybrid (somewhat centralized, somewhat not) authority for making > design decisions: there is one team responsible for them all, but the > team members are assigned to other cross-functional teams. > > I've been doing some brainstorming about whether it would be > appropriate to have a much more decentralized decision authority for > design decisions. I have reasons for exploring whether a > decentralized decision authority makes sense. > > It seems like a decentralized authority comes hand-in-hand with other > aspects of an organic organizational structure. An organic structure > gives things like increased collaboration, more adaptable duties, low > formalization of processes, and increased communication in multiple > directions (e.g. not just down the organization chart). (I got this > information from Stephen Robbins' "Organizational Behavior" ... a > great book.) > > I'm interested in an organic structure because Robbins argues that > such a structure is more conducive to supporting a strategy of > innovation and for dealing with non-routine, ill-defined work, which > in my experience, defines design work well. > > If you made it this far, I have some questions I hope you can help > with: > > If you've worked in an organization that decentralized design > decisions, what worked well and what didn't? > > What did you (or your organization do) to make the organic structure > successful? > > What challenges did you face in the organic structure, and what did > you do to manage those challenges? > > Thanks! > Alan > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- Raminder Oberoi [email protected] ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
