Coordination Headwind: How Organizations Are Like Slime Molds

Is there a version of this that doesn't force me to click through slides with very little content on each one, as if I were in kindergarten? To whoever wrote this: I can read.

It's been a long time (5 years?) since I encountered this last. Despite the idea making total sense to me, I am no clearer than I was then on how to actually do this in any org I have been a part of or managed. Where does this work? How did you do it? Does it work?

An aspect that’s missing from this analysis is distributed vs centralized decision authority. In militaries and in tech startups a “squad” or “two-pizza team” are empowered to make decisions for their local domain because they have the real-time context. The decentralized decision authority that happens with matrix-style management is a much higher contributor to coordination overhead than the top-down or bottom-up axis described here.

An autonomous team that does what they are told or an autonomous team is free to pursue opportunities as they see fit are both useful and can react quickly. The question is how much scaled alignment you need to execute a particular goal.

You can’t invade a country with one squad of 10,000 soldiers or 1,000 squads of 10 that do as they please. You need to delegate execution authority to small teams who are aligned to a shared goal.

Similarly, you can’t expect one group 10,000 devs with no internal structure to explore and find interesting opportunities to explore; you’ll just get noise. Nor can you try to manage 10,000 devs directly. You won’t be able to grok the context.

Complexity management in organizations follows the same patterns as in code. Single responsibility, don’t repeat yourself too much, encapsulation, etc.

It’s really a function of information theory, the more people you have to ramp up or keep current on context, the lower your ability to make and stick to decisions.

Great content, horrible presentation. This would be much more useful as a document, not a deck.

There’s a lot that’s good here, but you just can’t be slime molds in a modern capitalist corporation.

A substantial portion of company goals is set by a very small group that is far removed from the day to day work, and the goals are often connected to timelines and financial expectations well before any team member gets into the project.

To have slime mold like behavior, a corporation would have to hire employees, give them time and resources, and general guidelines and goals, but let specific targets and projects bubble up.

This is fundamentally incompatible with a next-quarter profit driven corporate financial structure.

Harvesting, cooking, and eating Dog Vomit Slime Mold:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfbLSl_4o78