Designing an Open Organisation

Another extract from a recent e-mail…

As for organisational structure, I think you and Imogen are both right. You need to define and be explicit about your structure, but operational units should have as much autonomy as possible within their defined limits/remit.

People investing more time and energy in the project can still have more say about how stuff is done. Afterall, it seems fair that those doing the more implementation work should have more say in decisions about how, and what, work is implemented.

I think you’ve had a look around the ud wiki already, but a few good places to start when thinking about such things (in no particular order) are:

The VSM – a guide for co-operatives and federations
How to design a healthy business: The use of the Viable Systems Model in the diagnosis and design of organisational structures …
www.greybox.uklinux.net/vsmg_2.2/

The Open Organization Project
https://www.open-organizations.org/

Chaordic Design Process
https://wiki.uniteddiversity.com/ChaordicDesignProcess

Co-op UK Governance and Participation Case Studies
https://www.co-opunion.coop/live/cme377.htm (there is some other interesting stuff there too, but some of the info about LLPs is completely wrong, i.e. it says you can only have 20 members, which is total nonsense. Thankfully their more recent publications have this corrected, but they still haven’t changed the site despite having had it pointed out to them)

Most likely see you at the meeting…

Josef.