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There's a lower bound at which the cognitive load of the business exceeds the capacity of the individuals, and at that point, it's time to introduce managers to

There's a lower bound at which the cognitive load of the business exceeds the capacity of the individuals, and at that point, it's time to introduce managers to reduce a team's cognitive load, and to bubble up the important stuff to the executive level. As companies grow, you need more managers. Eventually, the cognitive load for the executive staff grows again, and you introduce the second layer of managers, usually Director-levels, that manage managers. In a well-run organization, IMO, it's generally about the flow of information. A CTO of a 5 person startup might review every line of code, but a CTO at a 100 person startup wouldn't have time for that, but would still need to know about major bugs and all of the features that are shipping. A CTO at a 1000 person company doesn't even have time for that, but needs to know about how each team fits together into a larger pattern. TL;DR: yes, as companies scale, introducing management reduces the cognitive load of teams and their higher-ups. If you want to read more about this, there's an excellent website/book called Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais[1] that I think captures one way that teams can be organized and how it can help reduce that cognitive load I was talking about. If your company will let you expense it, it's well worth the read IMO. [1] https://teamtopologies.com/ https://teamtopologies.com/

QuarterReptile 4y ago
By far the best answer. There are other aspects of the observed effect, too. A small startup where the CTO can review all the code is also a startup where the CTO can be involved in all hiring. It's also small enough to not be perceived as a lucrative target for lawsuits, so underperforming employees can be fired much more easily. On a more macro level, most of the productivity of an organization comes from a minority of its members, and that majority of nonprductivity can really become appalling at large scale.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

By far the best answer. There are other aspects of the observed effect, too. A small startup where the CTO can review all the code is also a startup where the CTO can be involved in all hiring. It's also small enough to not be perceived as a lucrative target for lawsuits, so underperforming employees can be fired much more easily. On a more macro level, most of the productivity of an organization comes from a minority of its members, and that majority of nonprductivity can really become appalling at large scale.