In business, especially SaaS, you are going to have to work together to accomplish your goals. The question is… How are you going to work together?

I’d like to offer up a simple classification system that can be used to help organizational design architects better define the aspects of their system:

Single-threaded vs Constellation-based
Individual vs Squad
Assembly-line vs Artisanal

Want a summary? Check out this GSheet

I’d love to converse about this, so please leave a comment on any cell… sharing stories about how you’ve seen that model work or not work… or to ask clarifying questions!

What are the Options?

	Assembly-Line	Artisanal
Single-Threaded Individual	Work comes to you, you do that thing	You are given a single outcome, and told to go get it
Single-Threaded Squad	Work comes to y’all, y’all do that thing	Y’all are given a single outcome, and told to go get it
Constellation-Based Individual	Work comes to you, you do that thing, but think about the broader connected system as well.	You are given a critical business health measure, and told to go keep it healthy and grow it
Constellation-Based Squad	Work comes to y’all, you do that thing, but think about the broader connected system as well.	Y’all are given a critical business health measure, and told to go keep it healthy and grow it

Let’s explore the components…

Single-threaded vs Constellation-based

Single-threaded is about getting a single measure, a single task, a single outcome. You don’t have to be very concerned with other metrics that may be impacted or influence the measure you are focused on.

Constellation-based is named as a derivative of the North Star concept. The idea is that there are a set of measures all impacting each other. Some may shine brighter than others, but all must stay in focus.

Individual vs Squad

No magic here… sometimes you assign accountability to an individual and other times a collection of individuals. The reason I use the word squad and not team or group is that squad is intended to highlight the fact that it could/should be a cross-functional group.

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
–– Michael Jordan.

Note: A group of folks all doing the exact same role, is a team, but that team is handling the tasks individually. I don’t consider this a squad.

Assembly-line vs Artisanal

In manufacturing Artisanal is the concept of holistic or integrated production versus specialized or segmented approach of Assembly Lines.

A few sub-concepts:

Craftsmanship: If the task has known activities that are proven to always work; you may choose assembly line. If the outcome could be solved in many emergent ways, Artisanal is usually the best choice. With Artisanal, the idea is that a craftsman who understands and executes every aspect of production can achieve a higher level of quality and personalization in the final product.
As a leader, if you value versatility and uniqueness of those on your team, you may lean more Artisanal. You may lean more assembly line if you need specialization, folks need to do it the same way every time, and the rest of the system is known as “deterministic” (a deterministic system, given the same initial state and inputs, the system will always produce the same output).
Leadership’s stance on quality will also impact this decision. If you emphasize the responsibility of all members of an organization to contribute to quality and customer satisfaction you will often lean towards a more Artisanal approach, where understanding the entire process is valued over specialized, segmented tasks.
Variability of the tasks: If the activities require creating unique, customized outputs, often you’ll lean towards an individual (or squad) crafting an entire item/outcome, as opposed to an assembly line where different people are responsible for different parts.

Assembly line = emphasis on efficiency, speed, and specialization Artisanal = emphasis on outcomes, creativity, and “the whole”

What are the Pros and Cons of each combination?

	Assembly-Line	Artisanal
Single-Threaded Individual	👎🏾 Very little autonomy	👎🏾 “one numbers” given to individuals, where the numbers are reliant on systems they don’t directly control = high likelihood for politic’ing, accidental adversaries, & a blame culture
↳	👍🏾 Very clear and focused	–
Single-Threaded Squad	👎🏾 Very little autonomy	👎🏾 Must be careful to set clear boundaries, because w/ single threaded you are trading simplicity for potentially harmful tunnel vision and local optimization
↳	👍🏾 Very clear and focused	👍🏾 High autonomy + simple
Constellation-Based Individual	👎🏾 If done well, will likely migrate to the more hi-trust artisanal model… if done poorly could fall prey to local maximization	👎🏾 A lot of accountability, I would argue too much for an individual. I’d also argue that it can negatively impact culture and agency of others. Forcing them to be ticket-takers/assembly line workers
↳	👍🏾 Clear, focused, and if used sparingly (for high-specialization areas) can be highly effective	👍🏾 High autonomy inoculated from local maximization
Constellation-Based Squad	👎🏾 If done well, will likely migrate to the more hi-trust artisanal model… if done poorly could fall prey to local maximization	👎🏾👍🏾 A lot of accountability… which is a good thing, but also stressful
↳	👍🏾 Clear, focused, and if in a hi-trust environment w/ heavy collaboration with the upstream and downstream stakeholders can be highly effective	👍🏾 High autonomy inoculated from local maximization

When should you use which?

Short answer… and the most annoying answer is… it depends. Here is a guideline I reference when making the call.

	Assembly-Line	Artisanal
Single-Threaded Individual	Good for small tasks within the assembly line such as support tickets or one-call-close deals	Only use this for time-based experiments. Toxic behavior is too likely if done for long-term
Single-Threaded Squad	Good for non-thought-work tasks that require multiple skillset within the assembly line. Can’t think of good examples.	Only use this for time-based delivery like pure ShapeUp or at such a high level (think President) that accountability doesn’t really matter. Toxic behavior is too likely if done long-term or without complete control of the full system
Constellation-Based Individual	Good for thought-work input/leading outcomes. Here is where you’d deploy specialists. RevOps, DevOps, Billing… really any operations role could fit nicely since they are getting requests from multiple sources and executing on them.	These are either super lagging metrics such as new business, expansion, and retention. Often an exec has this as their “number”… but, I’d argue there are too many variables for ownership. In Product, this known as the PM is CEO / single-wringable neck model.
Constellation-Based Squad	Good for thought-work input/leading outcomes. Great, and my personal recommendation for any team that isn’t creating. Creation (Product) can’t focus on just leading indicators without turning into a feature factory.	These are either super lagging metrics such as new business, expansion, and retention. These are numbers that IMO an exec team should own TOGETHER… they all contribute to them all. This is also the preferred Product Squad model.