
No departments - icey
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/06/no-departments.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+startup%2Flessons%2Flearned+%28Lessons+Learned%29
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lmkg
Compartmentalization addresses scaling. In particular, it addresses scaling
group interaction between the members of a group with a common group goal but
heterogeneous skills, responsibilities, and individual goals. It can address
this problem well or poorly, but all the good solutions (and probably all the
solutions) involve some amount of compartmentalization, and allowances for
cross-compartment interactions. The really good solutions don't have huge
downsides, but they all have costs. And there are tons of ways to do it wrong.

If you are a small start-up, you do not have this scaling issue yet. You
shouldn't bring in the solution if you don't yet have the problem, especially
because the solution is costly, treacherous, and difficult to do well.

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brolewis
I started to write a comment here but it became a bit lengthy and so thought I
would post it to my blog. You can find it
here<[http://blog.parishmedia.info/post/708546766/no-
departments-y...](http://blog.parishmedia.info/post/708546766/no-departments-
yes-communication>); if you are interested. For the tl;dr version, the problem
isn't departments, its communication.

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tjmaxal
This is the exact same problem HN discussed yesterday with the post on Hiring
people with different skills.

You either have to hire people cross trained or you have to be willing to
cross train them yourself.

Just assuming that cross training will happen on its own is a big mistake.

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JoeAltmaier
Departments means middle-managers. Middle-managers have no direct
responsibility for making the product/company successful; they are destined to
optimize their own department.

Which always ends up: construct the smallest possible product feature set with
the largest possible budget (money AND time). Voila! the greatest chance of
departmental success.

All middle managers should be lined up and shot (lined up so one bullet will
do for the whole line). The company will immediately begin to be more
profitable, and ramp up from there.

