Agreed, there are analogs to everything mentioned here that are applicable to {hardware,software} engineering teams as well. One gem: In order for highly hier

Agreed, there are analogs to everything mentioned here that are applicable to {hardware,software} engineering teams as well. One gem: In order for highly hierarchical organizations to be effective, they require one person who understands everyone else’s work at least as well as the individuals doing the work, and other people who are willing to be subordinates yet are still good enough to actually implement the design. Given the complexity of most top game titles, this just isn’t practical — if you were good enough to do the job, why would you want to be a flunky? On the other hand, completely unstructured organizations suffer from lack of information and control — if everyone just does their own thing, the odds that it’ll all fit together in the end are somewhere around zero. I'd go so far as to say this applies to organizations that are not so hierarchical too. A breadth of talent is necessary to get any large-scale project done, but having single points of knowledge, so to speak, is bad for two reasons; there is the ever-present hit-by-a-bus problem, and people without anybody to bounce ideas off of are unhappy and/or unproductive.