4 ms·

OP here -- something I didn't touch on is that this is really common when a company transitions from early-stage to mid stage. The operations of a small company

OP here -- something I didn't touch on is that this is really common when a company transitions from early-stage to mid stage. The operations of a small company and the operations of a mid size company (and the operations of a large company) are completely different. The problems start to happen there is a mismatch between what you are and what you think you are. If you implement big-company practices for a small startup, you're often going to be overburdening the team and losing agility. When you are a med/large company but operating like a small company, you'll see chaos and inefficiency. Part of the problem is that there's no clear line. Observant engineering and product leaders tend to have an intuition for when practices need to change... I think team size and revenue/contract size (for B2B) are good heuristics. But more often than not, it's a stumble through the transition and folks feel the pain before figuring out the solution.

dcow 4y ago
> Part of the problem is that there's no clear line. This is what baffles/wonders me about the state of the art in building companies. It seems so anecdotal and ad-hoc. Case studies and good advice, while they exist, are from "previous generations" and "we do it differently" because "culture". It feels like society has to continuously reinvent solutions to managing people and projects rather than building upon proven and effective strategies. I guess, perhaps, I am betraying my own lack of knowledge of this domain. Maybe there are tried and true tactics and I've just never experienced them. Related, it really feels like there should be a sub-field of "sociology" set on improving the efficiency of groups of humans using objective methodology that yields consistent and reliable results...
- sumanthvepa 4y ago
  > it feels like there should be a sub-field of “sociology” set on improving the efficiency groups of humans Yes there is. Its called organisational behaviour. Most b-schools have some faculty specialising in it. Cornell,I think, has a whole department in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations. They’re pretty good.
- danielmarkbruce 4y ago
  Look at any field which has a lot of moving parts - economics, social sciences, management, nutrition and so on. None of them have good theory. It's probably not possible.

dcow 4y ago

> Part of the problem is that there's no clear line. This is what baffles/wonders me about the state of the art in building companies. It seems so anecdotal and ad-hoc. Case studies and good advice, while they exist, are from "previous generations" and "we do it differently" because "culture". It feels like society has to continuously reinvent solutions to managing people and projects rather than building upon proven and effective strategies. I guess, perhaps, I am betraying my own lack of knowledge of this domain. Maybe there are tried and true tactics and I've just never experienced them. Related, it really feels like there should be a sub-field of "sociology" set on improving the efficiency of groups of humans using objective methodology that yields consistent and reliable results...

sumanthvepa 4y ago
> it feels like there should be a sub-field of “sociology” set on improving the efficiency groups of humans Yes there is. Its called organisational behaviour. Most b-schools have some faculty specialising in it. Cornell,I think, has a whole department in the school of Industrial and Labor Relations. They’re pretty good.
danielmarkbruce 4y ago
Look at any field which has a lot of moving parts - economics, social sciences, management, nutrition and so on. None of them have good theory. It's probably not possible.