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2. Distributed Authority
by: Chris Myers - iOS Developer, Blogger
You’ve been working or volunteering for an organization for awhile and have an idea that might improve outcomes related to your organization’s interests. Two scenarios may play out…
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You approach a “senior” member of the group and propose your idea. “Well, it’s never been done that way before. I don’t see why we need to change.”
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You realize that you’ll hear “no” and figure it’s better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission so you proceed with your idea.
Or maybe…
You’re a programmer, but also have a knack for photography and multimedia creation. You ask about helping out with the multimedia department at work a couple hours per week. The response: “That’s not in your job description…”
A common problem with many organizations is that the structure rarely changes. Start-ups move too fast and are concerned with the product rather than structure. Multinationals are so large, they can’t update their organizational structure quickly enough. Non-profits may have a budget so small that time and money are spent on the cause, not updating the rules and regulations. CodeDoesGood is not immune to these issues, so we have decided to implement an organization practice known as Distributed Authority.
Distributed authority (DA) is a response to the aforementioned issues. Instead of a organization based solely on hierarchy and limited responsibilities, DA allows for a dynamic change in the org structure as needed and implemented by circles rather than one key authority. In short, DA empowers a volunteer to “wear many hats”.
We have two guiding principles that encompass our feelings:
- Advocate purposeful autonomy through mastery.
- Encourage collective decision making.
We want to foster and grow autonomous volunteers who feel confident and have a purpose. Volunteers who feel like they really make a difference at CodeDoesGood and their voice is heard. We want volunteers to be a really important part of decisions and we value the opinions of volunteers experienced in areas that the management team may not be.
First and foremost, DA is not the elimination of an organizational hierarchy. Companies, non-profits, schools all still have a vertical structure with leaders. The difference with DA is that the expert often changes based on the change in the role. Here at CodeDoesGood, that is exactly how we are operating. In DA, the role is the focus rather than the employee. In our case that means we define tasks we need volunteers to do and any volunteer may step up and take on that role.
The role may be created or defined by the project organizer, lead mentor, or founder and can be updated on a local level to fit the needs of the group rather than waiting on a senior manager to spend a couple days watching a team work together and then decide to update each individual’s responsibilities. Instead, the group self-governs, delegates responsibilities and establishes a local chain of command. Remember--it’s not about the individual, it’s about the role.
This delegation of responsibility can be customized to the team’s needs (whether it’s one remote worker or a team of workers). Responsibility is not necessarily based on years with the company or organization but with the experience and talents associated with each contributor.
One of our projects suddenly has a team member leave. She was responsible for much of the back-end development of their project. The group convenes and rather than wait for a founder or business developer in another part of the country to decide how to replace the position, the team decides that Sabine and Jeremy could share the responsibility of the tasks as they have both an interest in learning back-end development and can free up some of their time to focus on learning. Similarly, another team at CodesDoesGood may face the same issue, but decided to tackle the problem a different way--perhaps all five choose to handle responsibility.
In short, each team self governs. Volunteers may actively lobby to take on a new task if they so choose.
It is simply delusional to think an organization could have a flat structure. A flat structure would mean that everyone is equal and there are no “bosses” but it's not feasible when you have many people with many different experience levels. At CodeDoesGood each member has strengths and weaknesses and the beauty of DA is to allow each member to play to their strengths and build/improve their weaknesses. But some people do have more experience and while every effort will be made to make decisions as a group sometimes final decisions do rest with the person most suited to make that decision.
As such, there is need for rules, hierarchy and delegation of responsibilities. Typically, though, DA allows for a governance team, comprised of all types of individuals (i.e. not just upper-management) to establish clear rules that everyone, from the CEO to the temporary office worker, to follow (or in our case, Founders, Lead Mentors, Volunteers). Who reports to whom? Who is allowed to start a new project? Who handles involvement with the media? How does a member switch projects? These are high-level questions which must have an authority to answer or direct. DA doesn’t replace the rules, it simply isolates the most important ones. This transparency allows for both a trusted, but not bloated hierarchy, and at the same time, a great deal of flexible decision making at the local or team level.
There are persons responsible for deciding what projects will be taken on, the team members that will work on the project and the team lead(s) responsible for managing that project. Aside from that, the lead will decide how to best utilize the resources of the members (with their input) to complete the project. If there are issues, the team addresses them together and finds a solution. Developers are not assigned tasks, they choose the task they will work on (with guidance from their lead if they need it). One team may travel a different path to complete a project than another team. The important part is that they do it as a team and each person feels empowered to make decisions and learns to communicate in a way that they take in others' feedback when making those decisions.
DA is a flexible delegation & semi-autonomous decision-making system that allows teams to locally implement project management solutions that best serve their talents. CDG has adopted this system to allow for projects to be taken on that allow the talents & interests of its volunteers to be fully appreciated and utilized.
We feel that by giving our volunteers the flexibility and freedom to take on the tasks that most appeal to them, involvement will be fun, rewarding, purposeful and easy (hey, that's one of our guiding principles!). Additionally, we have outlined Strict procedures to ensure efficient use of volunteer time (another guiding principle!). By having these strict procedures we feel confident that as long as a volunteer follows these guidelines and processes they will be able to make informed decisions for the good of themselves, their team, and CodeDoesGood.