organizations

Over the past few years I've had opportunities to interact with a variety of institutions on restoration projects. At the moment I'm thinking of lessons learned from two of those entities.

Both are large, sprawling government agencies. Both have entrenched bureaucracies and complex, difficult to navigate organizational structures. In the case of my experience, the difference has been in the people who have been my point of contact. Those people are the reason that one of those agencies will build successful projects in spite of the organizational structure, while the other will continue to wonder why things never work out as planned.

Both of the people I've been working with understand the structure of the agencies they are a part of. One of them uses that knowledge to communicate across departments, and to give us advance knowledge of the best ways to get things accomplished within the system. It's a daunting task, and he sometimes shows the stress. But without him, it would be almost impossible to achieve the end goal.

The other person seems to have preconceived notions and a lack of understanding of the motivations of departments outside of his own. He's given us inconsistent guidance. He recognizes what's broken, but instead of cross-communication, instead of understanding why others ask for the things that they do or explaining his own perspectives, he's only added more complexity. Writing additional guidance won't help if no one reads what they already have, and no one talks to the people who have institutional knowledge. It's not complexity that's needed, it's simplification, understanding, and communication.

It's all been a good reminder that no matter how rapidly technology advances, in the end it comes down to the effectiveness of the people involved in the project.