tfnico's blog

In my previous post , I suggested several topics to blog about, based on my experiences of 2017. How Silos Grow was the topic most asked for: This was my initial shock after joining the company. Only a few years after taking off as a startup, the hedges began growing, seemingly almost by themselves, and against the will of the founders. I've worked in silos, and in companies without them, but I haven't been there to witness them coming into existence before. It is a fascinating phenomenon, yet oh, so common. And a killer of great companies. This posts digs into why and how silos happen. It's a bit of a long one, so here's the TL;DR: It is about human nature. Departments are a good thing (for some things). People in different departments are inherently different. The project method is still problematic (and reinforces the silos). Cross-departmental teams should be the first-class organizational unit instead. Although the idea to write this came from my fir...