I interviewed lots of candidates for teams I worked on, for other teams at the same company and, of course, I also was interviewed while looking for new opportunities for myself. In all cases, mentioning that the company has a flat hierarchy is considered an important aspect of the position and is placed as an advantage of the position/company. I hear so much about the positive aspects of it but, is a flat hierarchy that perfect? Why aren’t the discussing more the negative aspects as much to improve it?
I am used to say that extremes are, in general, not good. I worked in companies in which a single step forward was not possible without lots of documents to fill and to be approved by many different levels of managers. Every internal request had a long service desk process. Change a wrong translation in a page, for example, could take months. But now, we have agile. And cross-functional teams. Self-organizing teams. And flat hierarchies. Isn’t it better? It is, but I like to complain about problems and it would not be different here. 🙂
Jokes aside, a too high level of freedom can bring problems too. We are people, and people have a different perspective of things, different approaches, different mindsets… Plus, in an international environment, we come from different cultures too. How is it possible for a medium to big size company in this scenario, without conductors, to stay tuned and at the correct timing?
One of the most common problems I faced because of the flat hierarchy is related to collaboration. When a company adopts this setup, the collaboration between teams tends to be lower and brings problems in the overall goal of the company.
There are also problems within the team. This is a really tricky one for PMs. As we kind of have an outside view of the team behavior and interaction, sometimes we want to help on solving relationship problems or try to balance the decision-making process in a way to give more space for members that have a more shy personality or to ask for more resources and so on. But if we stand on it, most likely there will be complaints about our micromanagement behavior. Doesn’t matter how careful you are on not going to this side.
One thing I want to make pretty clear is that I am not in favor of a highly hierarchical company, I don’t think this works at all. But instead, I think we need to start testing other types of leadership. I already experienced some different approaches to that but I didn’t see an effective result on that.
I worked in a setup with a Chief PO, but it was not so well implemented. I believe it can bring some positive results, though. If this person is responsible to have a more broad view of the product, working between teams, and helping them to keep the company’s overall goal, for example.
I also experienced a setup with a People Manager role, trying to help the members of the teams to develop themselves as individuals and as a team. Again, it could have had a better implementation of the role. In the cases I saw, this person was not so involved with the ongoings of teams for which they were responsible, and that limited a lot of their actions. Also, this role requires people that like and have previous experience working with people. Hiring a person with Project Manager experience is not enough. This person needs to focus on people.
Other options that come to my mind are principal architects with an overall view of the product to support in more complex decisions, maybe a reviewed Tech Leader position, or a reviewed Team Leader position. I used the “reviewed position” expression here because I mean a position that supports integration, collaboration, decision making, and team maturity building. Again, a role that will support those things, and not define them. With people that are able and enable to help us to stay tuned and at the correct timing.
