Template:M intro design org chart: Difference between revisions

The paths we make when our built environment lets us down.<ref>Nicely put by Steve Bates in “Lines of Desire”, ''{{plainlink|https://issuu.com/warrendraper/docs/doncopolitan_rosy2_issue__online_|Doncopolitan}}'', July 2014 </ref>

Informal pathways across open ground that emerge over time as individuals make their own judgment about what are the most convenient routes, ignoring central planning and designed pathways.}}

The [[org chart]] is a formal diagram that places everyone in a logical, hierarchical relation to everyone else, reporting lines radiating out and down from the the splayed fingers of the [[chief executive officer]]. It is a centrally-sanctioned, aspirational, blueprint: to the executive suite what the “built environment” is to the town planner: a plausible account of how the organisation is ''meant'' to work.

But it is [[the map and the territory|a map and not the territory]], and is little use in understanding how the organisation ''does'' work. For that we should look for desire lines. Communication channels that personnel open because they want to, or need to, to get what they need to do, done. These vital channels rarely run along the formal lines of the org chart.