[Weekly Retro] Mechanisms and bureaucracy

#26 - Dec.2023

Happy Friday! Kicking off the last month of 2023!

Here is a quick idea before you head off for the weekend:

Mechanisms are a critical lever for creating structure, bringing accountability, and ensuring consistency in a team.

But when they become excessively complicated they trigger bureaucracy.

Most of the time, complications make their way at a very silent and slow pace: overcentralizing decision-making, adding unnecessary steps to a process, ceremonies with no concrete intention, complex organizational boundaries,...

Mechanisms should serve the people innovating, not the other way around. Review them from time to time. Remove what is not needed.

Interesting links I found during this week:

• My Leaders Still Want Roadmaps with Timelines—What Should I Do?
• Inside OpenAI: How Does ChatGPT Ship So Quickly?
• TIME's Best Inventions of 2023

Quote of the week:

"A harmonious design requires that nothing be added or taken away." - Vitruvius