Robert Falkowitz - Changing organizational structure

2020.02.24 © Copyright 2020 Concentric Circle Consulting. All rights reserved.
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Version 1.0
Robert S. Falkowitz
robert@3cs.ch
@R_Falkowitz
www.3cs.ch
The Good, the Bad and the
Very Ugly of Changing
Organizational Structure

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Filling a gap
Maximizing inter-team
coordination
Knowledge imposed
The Two Cultures

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Version 1.0
Filling a gap
Maximizing inter-team
coordination
Knowledge imposed
Solving an immediate
problem
Maximizing self-
organization
Knowledge created
The Two Cultures

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1.Changing the structure of an organization to
make an improvement sows the seeds of the
next problem that will need yet another change
2.Skipping cycles of change is probably a bad
idea
3.Successful future cycles depend on what you
learned in past cycles

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Method: Organizational archæology

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Scope: IT+
(not specifically the software lifecycle)

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ability to
obtain
resources
allows an
organization
to create
an organi-
zational
strategy
and invest
resources to
develop
capabilities
enabling the
organization
to create
distinctive-
ness
which
increases its

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Version 1.0
Why is organizational structure important?

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Efficient and effective flow of work

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Clarity of organizational mission and vision

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Psychological factors:
Motivation
Safety

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Impact on products (maybe)
(Conway’s Hypothesis)

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Facilitate
Continual Improvement

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Facilitate
Organizational Agility

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By "Axel Tschentscher", CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81683877

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✔Considers teams to be complex adaptive
structures
✔Recognizes that circumstances constantly
change
Team Topologies...

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✗ Treats Conway’s hypothesis as dogma
✗ Prescribes a “best” team structure and
underplays the journey to reach that structure
✗ Underplays the limited availability of skills,
politics, individual personalities as influences on
team structures
Team Topologies...

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IT organization as a
complex, adaptive system

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Three Body Problem

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Non-linear behavior
Prey parameters Predator parameters
R 0.27 Starvation rate (q) 0.1
Start Prey population 1000 Conversion efficiency (f 0.0065
Start Predator populatio 20 Attack rate (a) 0.015
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Prey
Predator
Time
PreyPopulation
PredatorPopulation

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Changes
Issues /
Constraints
Org is
success-
ful and
does
more
business
More
personnel
hired
Business is
poorly
scalable and
requires
more
resourcesBusiness
growth
More
management
personnel
required
High costs
make the
business less
competitive,
less successful
Feedback Loops—Reinforcing

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Changes
Issues /
Constraints
Org hires
more
personnel
Training,
coaching and
exercises to
facilitate
integration
New
personnel
integrate
teams with
difficulty
Business
growth
Feedback Loops—Balancing

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Emergent Patterns
Our new strategy:
The customer
always comes first
Does that mean
we have to work
week-ends and
nights?
Will that change
how we interact
with other
teams?
How will you
measure our
compliance with
that policy?
Agents create
structures &
methods in
response to
circumstances,
without their
being directed
to do so

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System Archetypes – recurring patterns
of behavior
Shifting the burden Tragedy of the Commons Drifting Goals
Source : www.systemsthinking.org/arch/arch.html

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Version 1.0
Example: Releasing
Reinforcement
if it is hard...
• You will add more
controls
• It will become harder
• It becomes dramatic
and risky
• You will release less
and less frequently
Reinforcement
if it is easy...
• You release more
frequently
• It becomes routine
• Many risks are
diminished
• You will release even
more frequently

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Version 1.0
Problem: Creators make live environments
unstable
Structural response: Separate creators and
operators into distinct teams with clear
separation of responsibilities and access
rights

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Problem: Operators lack the skills to fix
broken systems or to assess the operability
of new solutions
Structural response: Assign diagnostic
rights to creators

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Problem: Hand-offs from operators to
creators and then back again disrupt flow
and slow resolution times
Structural response: Reorganize creators
and operators into a single team

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Version 1.0
Models for how a reorganization sows the
seeds of the next problem:
•Victim of its own success model
•Fix the symptom, not the cause model
•Robbing the cradle model
•Keep people busy model

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Structure
————
Collaboration
————
Leadership
Issues /
Constraints
Network
————
Promises
————
Ad hoc
Centralization
————
Agreements
————
Formalized
Team
integration
&
coordination
/ external
resourcing
Time
Conflict
between
agreements
& effective-
ness / central
authority vs.
autonomy
Hierarchic
————
Processes
————
Delegated
Conflict of
function
vs.
process
Matri
———
Value ch
———
Crosse

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Structure
————
Collaboration
————
Leadership
Issues /
Constraints
Time
Matrix
————
Value chain
————
Crossed
Lack of
agility
Customer integration
————
Continual improvement
————
Servant leader
???

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Version 1.0
Changes
Issues /
Constraints
Startup
has a
single,
small
team
Delivery
rate
increases,
but with
increased
defect
rate
Success
leads to
more
demands
on that
teamGreater
volume of
work
It is believed
that team
members
cannot assess
the quality of
their own
work
A separate
quality
assurance
function is
created
QA team
becomes a
bottleneck

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Changes
Team
chooses to
become more
“agile”
Temporary
“DevOps”
silo
created
Team
lacks engineering
skills for automated
testing, deployment,
monitoring
“DevOps”
silo
disbanded
Training,
coaching,
transfer of
skills and
tools to team
Increasing
maturity
Issues /
Constraints

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Changes
Split DB Dev
from DBA, with
DBA function
often outsourced
to cloud
Database
management
has become a
silo
???
Loss of end-
to-end
responsibi-
lity for
data!Towards
fewer
silos
Issues /
Constraints

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Changes
Regional
centraliz-
ation of
personnel &
infrastruc-
ture
Lack of
skills;
redun-
dant, low
use of
resources
Global
central
-ization
Loss of
global
control,
lack of
trust
Greater
control /
lower cost
Too
costly
Near-
shoring
Issues /
Constraints

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Version 1.0
Changes
New
systems
selected
Increase team
collaboration
mode
Need to
quickly
discover
technology
limits &
suitable
practices
Greater
experience
/ higher
perform-
ance
Collabo-
ration
reduces
flow of
work
Move to
X as a
service
mode
Team
interface
changes are
difficult !
Team
interface
changes are
difficult!
Issues /
Constraints

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Version 1.0
Changes
New systems
selected;
intuit how to
work
Incremental,
ad hoc
improvements
Inefficient
practices and
lack of
information
discoveredGreater
experience
/ higher
perform-
ance No structural
changes necessary;
use communities of
interest for
information
exchange
Issues /
Constraints

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Version 1.0
Changes
Startup
has a
single,
small
team
Work
increasing-
ly assigned
to high
perform-
ing team
members
Success of
company
results in
increase in
demands
on that
teamGreater
volume of
work
High
performing
team
members
become
bottlenecks
Knowledge
transfer??
/ Split
team??
Issues /
Constraints

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Version 1.0
Feedback Loops to Encourage
• Digest the lesson rather than change the
team
• Foster end-to-end responsibility rather than
specialization
• Start from where you are rather than from
the gap to where you would like to be

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Version 1.0
ability to
obtain
resources
allows an
organization
to create
an organi-
zational
strategy
and invest
resources to
develop
capabilities
enabling the
organization
to create
distinctive-
ness
which
increases its

46
Version 1.0
Thank you
Robert S. Falkowitz
Director, Concentric Circle Consulting
robert@3cs.ch
@R_Falkowitz
www.3cs.ch

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