| Pro traditional division into departments | Pro fractal (where each person does everything: selling, designing, buying, stock control, making, finance etc ) |
| It’s how an orchestra works | It’s how you drive a car – you don’t have one person looking ahead, someone else steering, someone else doing the brakes |
| We know it works | We know it works for individuals like plumbers, trainers, freelancers of all types. |
| er | Ownership = caring about customers = quality and delivery on time |
| er | Simpler to manage, in fact NO need to manage – each self-contained part runs itself |
| People only need to have one skill | They already have those skills in their personal lives (buying, finance, planning etc) |
| Safer for someone to have a skill | More security from being able to adapt |
| Ownership of an area | More variety, more ability to have an effect |
| Specialists might be better, and faster, at what they do | Generalists might have a bigger picture view e.g. better at selling if they know how they will make it, better at making it if they have discussed the spec with the customer. |
| er | Everyone meets the customer |
| We need management to make the big decisions (?) | No management at all. Much cheaper! |
| Easier jobs can be done by cheaper people, thus saving on wage costs | Fewer people employed: No non-value-adding departments – no Purchasing, no HR, no IT, no Finance, no Quality Control, no stores, no Production Control, no PMO etc |
| er | No communication gaps or misunderstandings between departments / silos |
| er | No political wars between departments |
| er | No more inter-departmental meetings |
| Work load smoothing within a department – e.g. several designers or sales people | Workload smoothing between skill areas (e.g. nothing to make do more selling) |
| er | Incentive to spend less time on non-value-adding tasks |
| Can have large specialist pieces of equipment | If you really want those (?) they can be shared – hired by the hour |
| Weak people can be carried (actually, is that good??) | Weak people are shown up and will leave. |
| er | Not dependent on any one manager or specialist – more resilient. |
