Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The vast majority of people need some type of organization. There is, however, a limit to  organization that leads to effectiveness. Adding more organization after this limit only leads to lesser effectiveness.

Here are a few posts on the MOI model from author and consultant Jerry Weinberg. The MOI model comprises three parts:

1. Motivation
2. Organization
3. Information

This posts discusses organization.

If there is one person working on a project, especially if that one person is me, little is required in the form of management organization. I just do the work. Add a second person, and now we need some type of organization so that the two of us can talk (at this point, just ensuring that the two of us have a common language is almost enough organization). Add a third person, and we need more organization. Add a fourth, fifth, and so on person and, well you see that we need even more organization.

Like motivation, the MOI model shows that there is a period of time where more organization leads to more effectiveness (see the graph below). Ah, I love that part of the graph. You see, I love to organize things and lead people. One of my problems, however, is that given the time, I tend to start organizing the people. I mean, I guess given enough time, I start organizing the lives of the people. Hmmm, is that a bad thing ;-).

Move to the center portion of the graph. More organization leads to a leveling in effectiveness. Maybe people don’t need to have a team meeting in the morning and in the afternoon. Maybe one team meal a week is sufficient.

Move to the right, and more organizing leads to less effectiveness. I guess sitting in team meetings six hours a day reduces the amount of time that the team has to do the work. I should have realized that one.

Managers like me mean well. We want our teams to succeed on their projects. We want this success so much, that we just add a little more help in the form of organizing. Then we add a little more help, and then we add a little more help, and then we add…well you know.

The key question for the manager is,

How much organizing is too much organizing.

The answer differs for every different group of people and every different project. Like in the Motivation part of the MOI model, the manager needs to observe.

Notice yourself.

Notice the team.

The Organization Part of the MOI Model