Comments on: Hierarchies versus freedom

By: Matt Williams

Matt Williams — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:25:55 +0000

Yeah, I knew Fred, He was in the same year as me. The new union is finished (about 2 years late) and it’s serving our TopB needs quite well

By: Stu

Stu — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:57:52 +0000

I’d forgotten you were at Warwick too. I left in July 2004 so we probably didn’t have any overlap. Fred Emmot (of Slamd64 fame) was there for a while too.
I guess I miss it a bit, with all that weird but kinda funky 60s architecture. Is the union finished yet? Last time I went it was still a big building site.

By: Stu

Stu — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 10:51:32 +0000

Heh, that’s ok I’m not going to pretend this was a well thought out argument – I wrote most of this a couple of weeks ago, then noticed it when I was writing the post about how to say things and thought I may as well publish it.

When I was talking about hierarchies, I was actually referring to the situation at the Boar (but I didn’t make that at all clear). In that case the positions were by election which worked quite well. Within most hierarchies in business I would agree that getting to a position of ‘power’ doesn’t imply competence.

I agree with your second point. The main weakness of a flat structure is that if everyone is busy then important things can not get done at all. Having Claudia and Torsten around for things like the Join the Game campaign can help us with that though – not necessarily that they are in charge, but that they are being paid to make sure that things happen.

By: Matt Williams

Matt Williams — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:25:01 +0000

I agree a certain amount of anarchy can be healthy.

Also, I’d forgotten that you went to Warwick. When were you studying here? I’ve been here for 5 years now so maybe I just missed you.

By: mutlu

mutlu — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:26:16 +0000

Actually, I don’t agree with some of the characterizations you made about hierarchical organizations. For example, you assume that “Power lies with experienced people who are less likely to screw up,” but if you have experience in the business world, you will probably agree that there are a lot of people who have important positions (and who decide), but who did not get there because they do things better (which is implied with the word ‘experience’). Instead, they often get there for historical reasons (they were there at the right time) or because they know how to suck up to their respective superiors.

In my experience, both hierarchical and rather ‘flat’ organizations may fail, for a number of reasons. The question, to me, is less what the advantages of a hierarchy vs. a flat structure are, since KDE is and _has_ to be a flat structure, but how to recognize the weaknesses of a flat structure (to avoid them) and how to (possibly) improve the workflow.

While thinking about hierarchies is interesting in itself, it does little for KDE.

Hmm… I didn’t plan on being so ‘negative’ when I set out writing. Nice article, anyway.