Now I think for most people, the company they have been working at
will be a mixture of both ideas. Simon’s conclusion is that in an
unstable environment, Splat & O’Messy will react better because
they won’t be caught in the usual resource/decision making deadlock
that happens when things change.

I have another two observations which is that Spick & Span is
what every large corporation aspires to, but ends up being Splat &
O’Messy, and Splat & O’Messy is what a start-up is, and tries to
become Spick & Span.

I think the idea of a fully “normalised” (i.e. one function does one
thing) company is unrealistic. Any company that works in multiple
territories cannot realistically do this sensibly. Consider HR. Local
regulations are different and a homogenised approach is an aspiration
but not reality, take Paid Sick Leave as an example. You don’t get this
in some territories, but do in others.

Another aspect is when the company has a very diversified product
line. Is the sales and product management function the same for all ?
Hardly, similar, but not the same.

There are many use cases where you need duplication of resource in
order to fulfil the company’s function, it can never be perfectly sized
because we aren’t fortune-tellers, but you can help things along:

1. Every business has a certain amount of unavoidable complexity, the
   important thing to find out is what it is and ensure you are as close
   to is as possible and not increasing it.
2. Over regulation of the information in a business can be counter
   productive, there should be a core set of structures but units can act
   autonomously beyond those. (The spirit of the information).
3. Don’t mistake Pillars of Information for efficiency, ultimately it will cost the business too much to fix.
4. Ultimately time is the most valuable resource, it can be wasted, invested or saved, how that happens is down to an intimate
   understanding of the company’s business. The measurement of the effects
   can take far longer then the process, so look as far ahead as you can,
   up to 5 years if you can do it.
5. If a worker’s desk is a mess but they know where everything is,
   then you won’t notice a problem until you give the desk to someone
   else. Same with the department/team/company. Plan for change, and
   manage the mess.

In conclusion, yes a little “mess” is going to happen, but with a
little time, you can manage that, and still be reactive. Frankly there
is no substitute for hard-work and planning, how you do that planning
is up to your company as a whole as this is part of the character of
the company. If Spick & Span have done all this, then they’ll
out-perform Splat & O’Messy… until they buy them…

okay, so now we are getting to the nitty gritty two things are going to happen in the recession.

Firstly companies are not going to have access to credit, so the only way to maintain profit is by cost reduction.
Secondly these very same cut backs will cause new opportunities for companies who can offer products and services at lower cost.

Oscar following your logic … the same event happens to both Spick and Span and Splat and OMessy, which causes them to both loose 1/3 of their work force.
>Spick and Span loose 1/3 of their business process but dont loose any information.
>Splat and OMessy loose 1/3 of their work force and 1/3 of their information (they will simply never find it).
thus Spick and Span have the advantage ?

Lets consider this event on two aspects of the buisness
1>keeping the business going

I think that in a product development organisation where innovation is
important it is necessary to manage ‘radical’ thinkers in a way that
does not stifle their creativity. ‘Radical’ individuals will be in the
minority in any organisation, yet they will be responsible for most of
the innovation and will be burdened with the responsibility of bringing
their ideas into the mainstream of the company.

I would guess that innovation is possible across the whole spectrum
from order to chaos. Extreme measures had to be taken at Xerox Parc in
Palo Alto where they invented things like GUIs, laser printing,
Ethernet, the mouse, fully formed Object Oriented programming, the
first IDE and much more, all in a relatively short period of time. The
teams there were given very unusual creative freedom.

If all a company is manufacturing something according to a defined process, then you probably don’t need radical thinking.

I get a feeling that I concur with James … its simply a horses for courses kind of thing
So overall things have come out of this,

1) radical thinking vs mainstream
2) risk taking vs risk mitigation
3) chaos vs order
4) stability vs unstability

all these 4 forces are in balance in a healthy company.

A friend of mine (who is clever as a stick) looked at this another way, he said its not about chaos and order but about being a risk taker in comparison to being risk adverse.

So …
If a company is most profitable when it operating at the maximum acceptable level of risk then then such a company is one  that invites the maximum amount of counter culture in through its doors without actually exploding.

I guess that Boo.com is an example of too much counter culture, can you think of any other examples of companies that have gone too far?

It was our experiences “back in the good old days” that really helped me form this opinion. I recently worked on a very large project which was run by an excellent program manager. I was the architect, it was just like our old room.

The tecno bit was  … just a little messy … the organization of the teams was way tidy.
The compromise worked really well, we were agile in response, but disciplined in execution.
when the group dynamic changed (due to external forces) it all went wrong.

Unfortunately it was not like the old days and we could not settle the whole thing over some pints and game of pool. Productivity and motivation plummeted, and eventually the whole thing became a nonsense.

If only we had computers back in bal !!!
(p.s. have you seen the Balmoral Hall face book group )