
Who Really Found the Higgs Boson - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/who-really-found-the-higgs-boson
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adam_d
I worked on the ATLAS experiment for 6 years. The article gives a reasonable
description of the management structure and the unique upsides of that way of
working. However it mostly skipped over the negative aspects.

Possibly due to the described desire for consensus, I found the organisation
to be incredibly bureaucratic with incredibly lengthy processes. Releasing a
paper usually involved around a dozen rounds of review with various groups,
often arguing for days about linguistic style more than Physics content.

The lack of clear top-down control makes resource allocation very challenging.
There were frequent complaints that Higgs analyses had too much manpower while
less "sexy" tasks were chronically understaffed.

The lack of clear assignment of responsibilities also leads to lots of nasty
internal politics between institutes. Especially the Higgs analysis where
people were eternally engaged in attempts to land grab so they could claim
responsibility for bits of the eventual discovery.

Overall, I enjoyed working there a lot. It is a unique structure and the sense
of teamwork and lack of hierarchy is very nice. But this article is a bit of a
whitewash. I don't think it should be lauded as some incredible model, it has
at least as many problems as any other organisation of its size.

~~~
jessriedel
I've only worked very briefly in the CMS collaboration, but I've spent a lot
of time with people in particle physics collaborations and at medium/large
companies. My impression has always been that particle physics collaborations
are _very_ well managed for their size, among the best managed human
organizations Earth, but that obviously there are friction in getting 3k
extremely ambitious scientists to agree on this.

For instance, the "frequent complaints that Higgs analyses had too much
manpower" may be valid, but they're not really an example of organizational
disfunction unless you had some objective reason to think they were making the
wrong decision. Folks disagree about things whether they are inside
organizations or not, and if those things are important the disagreement may
be venomous. Likewise, the lengthy review process is painful and exhausting,
but my impression from almost everyone is that it is _sound_ \-- comes to the
right conclusions -- and that the conservatism is justified by the field's
history of purported discoveries that were later retracted. This soundness is
even more impressive when compared to the frequent complaints about the
capricious nature of the refereeing process at regular journals, which
involves just a handful of physicists. (This is to be compared to physics
collaborations outside HEP, like Planck, which are often said to be more
dysfunctional.)

So I guess I'm wondering if you could say more comparing ATLAS to similar
organizations? "The lack of clear assignment of responsibilities" could
certainly be a good criticism, and one that I would actually prefer to apply
to physics as a whole. The major rewards are fame and esteem, rather than
money, so everyone chases the sexiest, most highly visible tasks.

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sytelus
Very intriguing but just like most other articles on alternative management
structures, this leaves out all the critical information and focuses on
praising system without actually understanding it. While I understand that at
CERN most people are working for pure passion at modest salaries while being
very highly qualified as opposed to someone in 20s with goal to cash out stock
options and retire ASAP, I think it's important to figure out if this is the
driving reason behind success of loose management structure with no chain of
command.

Any alternative management system proposal needs to answer questions like,

1\. How people gets hired? Who creates job posting, how interviews are
conducted, who does negotiations, approvals and how talent gets attracted and
retained?

2\. Is there differentiated performance reviews? If so who exactly conducts,
signs off these? Is there curve? Is there expected distribution? Who approves
promotions/pay raises? Who sets up these rules?

3\. If there minimum expectations for performance? Who determines firing and
how?

4\. If there is no real manager and everything gets decided by commeeties, who
sets up these commeeties? How work assignment is done? Who is accountable for
tracking progress, success or failure? Who has final say in ties when
conflicts occur?

5\. What options employees have when they want change? How transfer happen?
Who approves these and what are the official rules?

~~~
Create
This PR piece is utterly misleading. CERN copied and implemented matrix
management, essentially what drove NASA JPL to the ground (ask Ron Garret,
lisper). For a hint on NASA's future (not talking of the military) recall the
name of the new space telescope. SLAC essentially closed down along with most
other labs.

Those who are at the receiving end of the job delegation process report to
several managers, none of whom need to take responsibility. Therefore only the
one who reports can take hits, as in hightail (see win-win analysis of The
Office on ribbonfarm). Obviously success is management's success, not least of
the DG.

CERN management proper on the other hand is a tightly knit group (not talking
about external contributors, “users” in CERN parlance) with the same level of
transparency that need-to-know mechanisms allow for. There are even line-
managers and the whole lot. Gianotti was earmarked for leadership position two
or three decades ago and has been at CERN since her early twenties. Her
external institute affiliation is just a mere formality in the sense that
Italy has financially contributed to the CERN budget.

Make no mistake: there is a chain of command, but one that is heavily
concealed behind a thick layer of administration (see ribbonfarm) protecting
management. There are whole departments and groups devoted to implement the
five questions you are wondering about.

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chrispeel
I like the loose management style described. My question, can such management
be used in a commercial endeavor?

