Operating Models

Operating Models is about the shape of a company and the rhythm it runs at. How teams are cut. How many people one manager can hold. What happens weekly, what happens quarterly, and which decisions belong to which. Most of it was set years ago by someone who has since left, and it has been inherited ever since.

The cost shows up in a place nobody looks. A team adopts a tool, every individual gets faster, and the team as a whole does not. The hours saved doing the work get spent explaining the work to each other. That is coordination tax, and it is invisible because no budget has a line for it.

Adding machines does not remove that cost. It can raise it. A model that produces five drafts creates five things to read, three opinions about which one to use, and a meeting nobody scheduled.

So this domain covers how to see that cost, what a team looks like when some of its capacity is not human, how many machine workers one manager can really supervise, and how to change an operating model without stopping the business while you do it.

The structure usually outlives the reason for it. That is the whole problem.