I think of “command and control” as one thing. Is there a difference? That common phrase notwithstanding, command and control are two alternative structures, more opposites than synonyms! Command (like in the military) allocates responsibilities to parts of the hierarchy. So a general is tasked with winning a war, and each officer under them is … Read moreCommand vs Control
When Honeycomb was a small company, All Hands meetings had announcements and discussions. Discussions mostly took place in the meeting chat, where everyone can answer anyone’s question. Between that and the announce channel in Slack, information got out to the whole company. Or did it? It’s hard to check for understanding in that big a … Read moreCommunication Structures in a Growing Organization
Honeycomb has doubled in size since I joined less than 2 years ago. More people means we can do more things at the same time. Both “more people” and “more things at the same time” lead to increased overhead. There’s coordination overhead to get timings right on work that’s independent. Like, to release a feature … Read moreAlignment gets expensive. Don’t skimp on it.
To scale up the system you’re changing, scale down the changes. The bigger and more complex the system you’re working on, the more people involved, the more affect a change can have — the smaller each change needs to be. When change is expensive, when it’s scary, don’t make fewer changes. Work to make changes … Read moreTo scale it up, smooth it out