Context:
An existing organization where the flow of information can be analyzed. The organization exhibits a management pecking order.
Forces:
Some centralized control and direction are necessary
During software production, the work bottleneck of a system should be at its center (in the adjacency diagram sense; see Notations). If the center of the communication center of the organization generates work more than it does work, then organization performance can become unpredictable and sporadic.
The developer is already sensitized to market needs through Firewalls and Gatekeeper (no centralized role need fill this function).
Solution:
Resulting Context:
An organization whose communication grid has more points below the diagonal than above it (figures are in progress).
Design Rationale:
Katz & Kahn's analysis of organizations shows that the exercise of control is not a zero-sum game [Katz & Kahn, p. 314].
The work should focus at the center of the process; the center of the process should focus on value-added activities (Developer Controls Process).
Organizations run by professional managers tend to have repeatable business processes, but don't seem to reach the same productivity plateaus of organizations run by engineers. In programmer-centric organizations, the value-added roles are at the center of the process (Developer Controls Process; Architect Also Implements). The manager should facilitate and support these roles and their work (Patron; Firewalls).
Mackenzie characterizes this pattern using M-curves, that model the percentage of task processes of each task process law level (planning, directing, and execution) as a function of the classification [Mackenzie]
The rationale is supported with empirical observations from existing projects.
Managers should still make day-to-day decisions for the business process, and pursuant to their responsibility to "keep the pests away" (Firewalls).
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