Month: January 2020

Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly Associates

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My last post on hierarchy generated a fair bit of interest – both online and offline. Once it is pointed out people recognise there is a positive side to hierarchy, it is not so much “hierarchy bad, no hierarchy good” as it is “how much hierarchy?” and the culture around that hierarchy.

But there is something else I have to say, something that has been bugging me for years. Look at the picture above, it is a structure chart, this one from Wikipedia (public domain). I suspect few people below the age of 40 have seen one, this is the way I was taught to design software at University. A structure chart is like a flowchart but horizontal, not vertical.

Look familiar?

A structure chart looks a lot like a hierarchy chart. Compare the picture above with the (fantasy) organization chart on my previous post.

Structure charts are used when doing structured programming, a technique used in procedural programming. So Pascal, Modula-2, Algol, even C. In this world (experienced) programmers spend a lot of time thinking (and worrying) about layering. They aim for layered systems, these are drawn as dependency diagrams which – can you guess? – look a lot like hierarchies too.

While all of these techniques still have relevance, in our modern world things have changed. Primarily, procedural programming has given way to object-oriented programming. In OOP the object is the thing: the object is an idea, code and data reside in the object. We build our systems with self contained objects (well ideally).

Sound familiar?

I like to talk about Amoeba teams, similar ideas emerge under names such as Feature teams, or stand-alone, or even Spotify Squad. The repeated idea is that teams have a purpose and contain the people and skills they need to pursue that purpose.

In the 1970s and 80s we had procedural programming, structure charts and hierarchies. The organizational form of hierarchy matched our programming model. In the 1990s we switched to object-oriented programming and now our organizations are playing catch up in switching to “object oriented teams” (if I can coin a new expression, which naturally abbreviates to OOT).

Conway’s Law strikes again!

OOP changes how you design software, it also changes how organizations structure themselves. While OOP changes the way programmes are structured and reduces the way programs are layered (and dependencies managed) it doesn’t do away with a structure. There is still a framework in place. Similarly, OOTs don’t exist in isolation, they need to exist in a framework – a hierarchy of sorts.

(And of course modern UI models and micro-services means main() isn’t always the top of the program any more!)

Conway’s Law implies that a hierarchical organization will adopt procedural programming, which was true in the 60s and 70s. New companies, start-ups, born in the OOP age natural structure as OOTs. Existing companies first see tension because the two models rub against one another.

Then reverse Conway’s Law (Yawnoc as it is sometimes called) would suggest companies move towards OOT – which of course we see with all the big companies adopting “Spotify.”

Which raises the question:

If stand-alone/self-contained teams, and reduced hierarchy, are the organizational structure which parallels object-oriented design and programming… what is the organizational form that parallels functional programming? How do you structure your teams when you are working in Lisp, Haskell or F# ?

What about concurrent (parallel) languages like Occam?
What organizational structure parallels message passing systems?
Or Data flow architecture? And quantum computing?

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Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly Associates

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Before this weeks regular post (In defence of hierarchy) a commercial, by me, for me 🙂

In March I’m going on tour, I’m speaking at Agile on the Beach New Zealand. I hope to call into Australia on the way, and I’ve been invited down to Wellington too.

My itinerary is not confirmed yet and ideally I’ll delivery some more talks – and charge some fees to make the trip more sensible. So if you know anyone in Australia or New Zealand who would like me to deliver some training or presentation please put them in touch, allan@allankelly.net.

Which makes it a great time to introduce my Fresh Ideas workshops.

These are short (2 to 3 hours) workshops which expand on ideas you will find in my conference presentations and books. So far these are:

• Value and the story: this includes an estimation poker exercise which is a lot of fun
• Continuous Digital: ideal for regular readers of this blog who want to share these ideas with their colleagues.
• Strategic capacity planning: this is largely an exercise extracted from my Strategic Product Owner course and builds on experiences with capacity planning

I’m also including two old favourites under here, maybe not entirely fresh but they fit the bill in other ways:

• Better User Stories: extracted from my Requirements, User Stories and Backlogs workshop
• Agile refresher: this features in my agile training and has been run a number of times as a stand alone exercise, it is a lot of fun and a way to start a conversation about getting better

As always, if you are interested in any of these get in touch – especially if you are in New Zealand or Australia.

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Allan Kelly from Allan Kelly Associates

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Hierarchy, it is one of those topics which provokes a reaction.

There are many in the agile community who believe hierarchy is a bad thing. Teams – and whole organizations are better off without hierarchy. It is simply(!) a case of finding better ways of organizing which don’t involve hierarchy.

Then there are those who acknowledge that hierarchy has been with us for millennia and find it hard to imagine how anyone could organise without it.

As a general rule the supporters of agile come down against hierarchy. I’ve been known to rail against hierarchy myself but at the same time I’ve long had my doubts that it is possible to remove hierarchy altogether. Rather I aim for less hierarchy and greater independence rather than the abolition of all hierarchy. I tend to keep this view to myself because a) it is subtle and b) I suspect I’ll loose a lot of agile street cred if people know.

So when I heard about a book called Hierarchy by John Child I immediately bought a copy. This is no easy read – Child is a Professor and so the style is academic rather than pop-psychology business blockbuster. So far I’m about half way through but the book raises many interested point that I’m still thinking through.

In particular Child highlights a number of benefits of hierarchy which deserve attention and I think are too often overlooked. Right now I want to capture my thoughts so far before I get into the arguments against hierarchy. So…

The benefits of hierarchy to an organization:

• Hierarchy has benefits were there is regulation
• Hierarchy helps large enterprises bring structure to their activities
• Hierarchy tend to develop in all societies whether they are intended or not, therefore imposing a hierarchy gives an organization a chance both to impose the order they want – and choose the leaders – and rather than accepting the hierarchy and leaders that emerge.
• Hierarchy allows for succession planning
• Reduce illegal behaviour: maybe not a big issue in your twenty-first century office but this can be an issue. It can also be a particular issue when people rise to the top of a hierarchy and find the organizational controls they had before are gone: they have nobody to report to. Could this explain some of the sexual and business mis-conduct that has been in the media in recent times?

Benefits to the individual:

• Hierarchy creates psychological safety, individuals know where they fit in and what is expected of them. They know who they need to pay attention to.
• Hierarchy reduces cognitive load and fear, in part because of the psychological safety it creates.
• Hierarchy provides a career model: people know what advancement in the organization looks like and those who want advancement can map out a course to achieve that.

Benefits to a team:

• Hierarchy creates clear areas of responsibility which enables team members and creates focus within the team.
• Hierarchy provides team members with a structures and helps them accept their position. On the whole people are accepting of hierarchy and accept the position. (Perhaps because they also know how they can advance their position.)
• Hierarchy allows a mix of strong and weak personalities to work together. While hierarchy can be used by powerful formal leads to suppress weaker staff hierarchy cuts both ways. Team decision making can be improved when hierarchy facilities equitable discussion between strong personalities.
• Formal hierarchy, with formal leaders, actually puts a responsibility on the leaders to ensure balance and allow weaker personalities to have their say. (While this can be abused when it is abused it should be clear to all concerned that the leader is not upholding their part of the bargain.)
• In a recognised hierarchy the senior people have a responsibility to moderate and listen to all. Where there is no hierarchy few may feel that responsibility and a single strong voice may dominate the weak.
• Where there is no hierarchy and multiple strong personalities the result can be conflict and disagreement. Without the hierarchy it can be hard to resolve such problems.
• Hierarchy provides for decision makers, perhaps one, perhaps more. Having recognised decision makers can make for rapid decisions: people know who to go to and that person knows they have responsibility. Conversely, where decisions are made by consensus decision making can be slow or absent entirely.

Recently I observed a team which made most decisions by consensus. But as one strong personality rarely agreed with the others any decision they didn’t agree with became a battle field. Most team members kept quiet and nothing changed. Sometimes another strong personality would try and force the decision through but this was usually unsuccessful. Only when several other team members were prepared to take sides. As a result consensus became a recipe for not changing.

Of these arguments the ones I find most interesting are those which concern the emergence of social hierarchy. I’ve certainly seen this – even in organizations with a formal hierarchy. Emergent leadership and hierarchy can be a good thing. They can also be a bad thing.

I can immediately think of several teams I’ve worked with were one of the developers – sometimes a relatively junior one at that – emerge as leaders and the team adopted a hierarchy oriented towards that leader. On one occasion that leader was me and I like to think I brought an order and structure which was beneficial. But I’ve seen other occasions were the leader who emerged was at odds with others in the organization with the result of tension.

I expect the idea of emergent hierarchy is immediately recognisable to those schooled in emergent design and behaviour. The question becomes: should organizations accept this? Or should they try to guide it?

In the extreme should an organization fight an emergent hierarchy which conflicts with the aims and goals of the organization? And is it worth the effort?

So far I have more questions than answers. I haven’t suddenly become an advocate for hierarchy but I now recognised this is not a one sided discussion. I plan to write another blog when I get to the end of the book and have had a chance to think through the for and against arguments.

In the meantime I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, just add them below.

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