Verticalisation, Matrix and other organizational changes

On ISTT: I said

"I have been following the debate on the verticalisation of IT firms and thought I'd just point you all out to a model that has been around a
long time and whether we can look at this approach in a new light.

I am talking about Larry Greiner's model 'Evolution and Revolutions in Organizational Growth' that was published in the early 1970s in the HBR

Griener's model is suited for organizations that grow from small entreprenuerial firms and in time grow in size and markets.

Griener says that an organization experiences a crisis point in various stages of its life and takes certain decisions to negotiate that crisis, which in turn leads to another crisis in the future.

The firms typically try structural changes to crises, and verticalisation, centralisation and decentralisation are examples of these efforts which are suited for that point of time.

Here are the various stages of Griener's model

1. Creativity - which runs into a crisis of leadership when the founder is no more around.

2. Direction - which runs into a crisis of autonomy

3. Delegation - which runs into a crisis of Control

4. Co-ordination - which runs into a crisis of red tape

5. Collaboration - and we still don't know what crisis this will run
into :-)

Check out the model here