Team structures - should be a straightforward enough topic, although in many organizations it isn't. Here are six phenomena you may remember from science class - and how they relate to your organizational structure.
To keep matters simple, this post refers to "entities" - which could either be individuals, teams or entire departments. While the nature of the entity changes, we are concerned with the relationship of the entities with each other. Since some terms have different definitions in different domains, let us refer to the point of origin.
Cohesion
(Origin: Chemistry)
Cohesion is the connection between entities of one substance. Organizational cohesion, thus is the bonding strength between entities of the same category.
Examples
We have organizational cohesion when there is collaboration occurring within one team.
We have poor organizational when team members act as a group of individuals, picking their own work items.
Adhesion
(Origin: Chemistry)
Adhesion is the strength with which two different entities stick together. Organizational adhesion, for example, is the amount of effort it would require to separate two different entities.
Examples
We have high organizational adhesion when a process has a complex critical path.
Two business units serve different customer segments independently have low adhesion.
Covalence
(Origin: Chemistry)
Covalence happens when two atoms share an electron to form a bond, which molds these two distinct entities into one "complete" entity. Within an organization, covalence occurs when two or more entities share resources.
Examples
Component ownership causes covalence - let's say team A owns the Customer entity, and team B owns the Contract entity. When B needs to access the Customer, they rely on whatever A provides - whereas when A references the Contract, they rely on whatever B provides.
In situations where the Contract relies on a new or modified attribute of the Customer - such as consumer credit score, team B must coordinate with team A on how and when a change can be made, and team A might want to store a "previously rejected" attribute that must be provided by Team B. Covalence thus means that while the inner dealings of A and B become intertwined, an outside change from covalent entities requires that the change works for all covalent entities.
Bridge
(Origin: Chemistry)
A bridge connects two entities to turn these into one common, stable structure. Bridges require covalence bonding between two entities plus the presence of a third entity. The bridge is an entity that connects two entities by being the missing part in both.
Organizational bridges are entities equally bound to two or more other organizational entities to form one entity of higher complexity.
Examples
The analyst role is often an organizational bridge - they are close to business from development perspective and close to development from a business perspective: they are neither, but connect the two entities to turn demand into solutions.
Coupling
(Origin: Physics)
Capacitative coupling occurs when an energy transfer occurs between two separated conductors. Organizational coupling thus occurs when two structurally separated entities affect the outcomes of one another. We would refer to "tight coupling" when either entity could cause blocking interference to the other, and "loose coupling" if there's a generally uncritical impact. If there is no interference, we would consider the entities uncoupled.
Examples
We see tight organizational coupling when the Maintenance Team decides to shut down the Deployment process, thereby incapacitating the development pipeline.
Loose organizational coupling could be the relationship between Marketing and Sales - while they can technically work with or without the other, they do have a performance effect on each other.
Coherence
(Origin: Physics)
Coherence is the ability of a signal to withstand interference. We discriminate between spatial and temporal coherence: Spatial coherence is the ability of a signal to withstand interference over distance, whereas temporal coherence is the ability of the signal to withstand interference over time. In an organization, it's the ability of the information to cross entity boundaries without getting distorted by interfering signals (e.g., from other work items, other projects or line management.) Note that coherence is only relevant in the context of cohesion - incohesive entities who don't work towards a common goal require no coherent signal transmission.
Examples
Low spatial coherence would be a process with a lot of "telephone game," where information is modified in each step.
High spatial coherence would be provided by a synchronization event which ensures that all stakeholders have the same understanding on a subject.
Low temporal coherence are the deviations from a plan over time, usually caused by unanticipated events.
