An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

My checklist for ensuring that a reorganization is appropriate: Is the problem structural? Organization change offers the opportunity to increase communication, reduce decision friction, and focus attention; if you’re looking for a different change, consider if there’s a more direct approach. Are you reorganizing to work around a broken relationship? Management is a profession where karma always comes due, and you’ll be better off addressing the underlying issue than continuing to work around it. Does the problem already exist? It’s better to wait until a problem actively exists before solving it, because it’s remarkably hard to predict future problems. Even if you’re right that the problem will occur, you may end up hitting a different problem first. Are the conditions temporary? Are you in a major crunch period or otherwise doing something you don’t anticipate doing again? If so, then it may be easier to patch through and rethink on the other side, and avoid optimizing for a transient failure mode. All right, so you’re still thinking that you want a reorg.