At a recent breakfast meeting, I was discussing organizational decision-making with an IT manager whom I respect as both progressive and effective. He was relating a story about a conflict he had with a couple of renegade technologists on his staff. Their biggest problem, he asserted, was an inability to comprehend the notion of a constructive bureaucracy. Now, before you dismiss that as an oxymoron, get past your emotions and think about how decisions are made--or not made--in modern IT organizations. The truth is, many in those organizations are paralyzed by the same maladies bureaucracies were designed to overcome.
Bureaucracy arose in the 19th century as a rational reaction to ineffective authority structures, which were often rooted in traditional leadership. Rapid developments in technology led to a more scientific and analytical approach to management. By devising a hierarchical structure and accompanying specialization of job functions, bureaucracy advocates sought to make organizations more effective. And while the term is now associated with bloated organizations steeped in ill-guided policies and procedures, the reaction against bureaucracy has often resulted in even more debilitation -- which characterizes countless IT shops.
The first problem pervading numerous dysfunctional IT organizations is the lack of authoritative decision-making. The hierarchies many have come to detest over the past 20 years have been replaced by matrix management structures and self-directing work teams. Unfortunately, most of the teams I've seen are lucky if their members can agree on who will bring bagels to the next meeting. It's not because these people aren't capable of making decisions; it's simply that no one has the authority to assign the critical preliminary tasks to drive the decision-making process and to hold people accountable for their completion. This lack of hierarchy is especially problematic during emergencies, where decisiveness is critical.
The second problem relates to specialization of job function. Bureaucracies were designed largely to encourage the development of specialized experts. In too many IT organizations, we've seen a trend away from specialists, often for what seems to be a good reason: IT specialists have a tendency to become technology bigots. If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. Also, most people recognize that the solution to some of the toughest problems involves the integration of diverse systems, and this task is not well-suited to specialists. The call for generalists who can see the big picture is laudable, but depth and breadth of understanding are often at odds with each other.
The final problem involves the issue of span of control, a management concept that suggests there is an ideal number of subordinates a single manager can effectively supervise. It doesn't take much analysis to realize there's no single magic number here. If a person's job function is relatively well-established, as in the case of a computer operator or a cabling technician, one manager can effectively supervise a large number of subordinates. But if job functions are complex and if people are dealing with emerging technologies, effective management dictates fewer direct reports. Employees often need more management support, and decisions require greater degrees of interaction.
Critics of bureaucracy are quick to point out the pathologies that often result from too much focus on hierarchy and traditional authority mechanisms. Such organizations tend to resist change, and the overhead associated with all the management needed to achieve a reasonable span of control can be a bitter pill to swallow. Flattening the organization has bottom-line appeal, but it seldom leads to more effective management. As IT initiatives move from skunk-works environments to production systems, with service levels measured by minutes of downtime per year, devoting a little attention to 100-year-old management principles might just do your shop a little good.
Send your comments on this column to Dave Molta at dmolta@nwc.com.
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At a recent breakfast meeting, I was discussing organizational decision-making with an IT manager whom I respect as both progressive and effective. He was relating a story about a conflict he had with a couple of renegade technologists on his staff. Their biggest problem, he asserted, was an inability to comprehend the notion of a constructive bureaucracy. Now, before you dismiss that as an oxymoron, get past your emotions and think about how decisions are made--or not made--in modern IT organizations. The truth is, many in those organizations are paralyzed by the same maladies bureaucracies were designed to overcome. 
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