The Zen, Art and Science of Organizational Networks

Free Your Mind And See Your Team Perform!

David KershawVP, Cloud Services

Altova GmbH

What Is An Organizational Network?

• Interests • Friendships• Questions• Stream of thought

• Team membership • Responsibilities• Decision making• Stream of action

All companies have both, but most want to improve

this kind of network.

Social Network Organizational Network

So, Why Is Teamwork Complicated?

What do you get when you cross a spider web with a school of fish?

“…when a task is carried out collaboratively by more than one individual, the task activities of the various individuals also need to be coordinated and integrated, further increasing the complexity of the teamwork effort”Familiarity, complexity, and team performance in geographically distributed software development, Espinosa, J. et. al., Organization Science. 18.4

Organizational Network impact is exponential

Teams are networks

That means:

• Capability goes up when you add members

• Team overhead gets crazy with size

Meet Metcalfe’s Law

The PMBOK worries about this

LinkedIn likes this!

Think Positive!

Do not ask me again what is already apparent in the Organizational Network!

Organizational Networks

can be 2x as good as you think!

• They help things get done

• They help us not need to do things

n(n-1) ÷ 2!!

Beckstrom’s Law

So, how great is your network?

• The value added by each pair of teammates

• Then sum all possible pairs

Network value must offset the high cost of communication and organization

But Remember What Didn’t Happen

Subtracting negatives results in a positive.Simple math!

• The value not lost by each pair of teammates

• Sum all those avoided costs

Wait, What Avoided Costs?

• Verifying information

• Making many little decisions

• Negotiating uncertain situations

• Finding or recreating lost items

• Asking questions

• Giving work to the wrong person

• Waiting for inputs

• Etc. An organizational network minimizes these distractions!

Dunbar’s Number

So many likes, so

little time…

Apparently,

humans can only handle

a few social relationships

The number is roughly

150

Let’s Extrapolate!

There must be similar limits for

all kinds of information…

Like tracking dozens of roles &

responsibilities across teams

But you don’t have to remember what the Organizational Network remembers for you!

The Allen Curve

Hold my calls, I’m in another state!

The frequency of communication

between teammates

drops exponentially

as distance increases!

Flip It Around, Frequency Enables Distance

Increased communication

enables greater distance

with less disengagement

An organizational network amplifies team

communication!

So How Do We Do That?

When team members’ jobs are integrated in an organizational network everything they do is communication!

• Remove “nuisance” communication

• Use savings for focused communication

• Make the whole job collaborative

Nuisances on slide 8!

Put It All Together For Me!

The screenshots are from MetaTeam!

Some suggestions…

Small Is Beautiful

Create fine-grained teams

With specific names & limited members

To help team members prioritize

Teams as well as items of teamwork.

Try this here! Learn more here!

Minimize Drift And Distraction

Change goals, roles & responsibilities infrequently

Let tasks, decisions & definitions change freely

So work is fluid & relationships aren’t in doubt.

Try this here! Learn more here!

Reduce, Reuse And Recycle!

Lean on role conventions,

Use words that are already defined,

Store files in tasks, alternatives & responsibilities

And add new decisions to successful agendas.

Try this here! Learn more here!

Choose Your Words

Give instructions in the most specific places,

But give feedback in aligned roles & responsibilities,

To separate doing work,

From improving how work is done.

Try this here! Learn more here!

Thank you!

David Kershaw, PMPVP, Cloud ServicesAltova GmbHhttp://metateam.net