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Cathedral and Bazaar style of organizing efforts

By Bamboo In The Wind

 Two means of organizing anything in life or work - Cathedral or centrally managed and Bazaar or chaotic yet inclusive.

For the longest time in the history of mankind, the command and control method has been used to organize society. Societal structures were built around local habits, habitats, professions, support, and faith-based systems. Group behavior is only possible to bring about with someone looking in charge. Take, for example, the household. The concept of head-of-the-household stems from this command and control method, where one person is expected to be the final authority.

Kings and Residents of kingdoms, Heads of states and Citizens, Spiritual gurus and Followers, Sports captains and players, Teachers and Students, Politicians and party members, we have numerous ways to organize how we live and work. Still, it is primarily driven by someone defined to be a command to control the behavior of a small/large group of people. This is reflected well in the Cathedral style model. The Cathedral model is hierarchical, spread like a tree with the root (head) node at the top. Decision flow is top-down, input flow is bottom-up, and decisions are at the top.

In the industrial age, businesses have adopted this organization model where well-defined work is demanded by the root node, and the tree below is expected to do the job.

With the advent of the internet, there has been a shift in a hierarchical model. The new model is one that effectively depends on networked interaction and decision-making. Every node in the network is associated with all those connected. It has a multiplier effect as the web grows omnidirectional, unlike in the case of the Hierarchical model where the tree grows downwards. Everyone has the power to be a head node and influence all nodes around it with a purposeful interaction to finish the work. The difference is everyone is empowered, and everyone can be a head node if they choose to be.

Networked decision-making has the effect of empowering you and those around you. It is inclusive and provides opportunities to those who wish to contribute. It is easy to get comprehensive feedback from omnidirectional direct and indirect connections. Because of this quality, one might find this model chaotic, random, and hard to predict the outcomes of. But when practiced intently, this model has much to it that an appearance of a chaotic bazaar. It leads to proactive contribution and has the potential to utilize a diverse set of inputs and ideas. 

The networked model is robust in organizing efforts to produce valuable work. The internet offers tremendous benefits of networked-effect of reach!

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