The good design principles and tests - Specialization, co-ordination, and unit boundaries - Difficult links
3 important questions on The good design principles and tests - Specialization, co-ordination, and unit boundaries - Difficult links
What are difficulty links according to G&C?
That are those co-ordinations that are unlikely to proceed smoothly through spontaneous networking between the units concerned. They are difficult because the units will not perceive the co-ordination benefits on their own, they will be unwilling to work together to achieve them, or they will be faced with conflicts of interests. To get the benefits, upper levels of management need to set up a co-ordination mechanism and/or itnervene directly.
Knowledge sharing can be effective coordinated via self-managed networking between units. But difficult links won't arise spontaneously and must be stimulated by set up coordination mechanisms. How can difficult links be repaired?
To put them in a single unit. When the development of coordination mechanisms doesn't work, design errors will occur.
Which four steps involves the difficult link test (does the organization design call for any difficult links, coordination benefits that will be hard to achieve on a networking basis, and does it include solutions that will ease the difficulty?) And what does the test insure?
1 Listing all the important links between unites
2 Assessing whether the links are likely to be difficult
3 Where possible, developing coordination solutions for the difficult links
4 Deciding whether any of the links are unworkable and if so whether they constitude a knock-out factor that requires significant structural change.
>> It insures that coordination mechanisms and parenting authority are designed where they needed (avoid unnecessary machanisms or interference where they will undermine the benefits of decentralization or constrain the development of a specialist culture)
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