Introduction
A team does not and can not exist as an island. In an organizational setup, it has to indulge in intra-organizational and external communications. How does the concept of Dirty-work group provide a solution to this and how would an organization based on this idea look like?
In this article, we introduce the concept of interfaces to a Dirty-Work Group and propose an organizational structure.
Interfaces
As a Dirty-Work group‘s organization is internal to a group, from the outside it would look like a black box. Proper interfaces should be defined for various kinds of interactions. The most apparent communications are of following types:
Internal: This interface is one point contact for all intra-company communications. Any request for information from other teams, dissemination of information, etc to the Dirty-Work Group is through this interface. Any member can pick this activity as their Good-Work (
) and if none exits then as a Dirty-Work (
).
External: This interface is one point contact for all external communications. Any request for information from the press, other companies, agencies, etc to the Dirty-Work Group is through this interface. Any member can pick this activity as their Good-Work and if none exits then as a Dirty-Work.
Hierarchical: This interface is one point contact for all reporting to the higher level of management and their communication to the group. Any member can pick this activity as their Good-Work and if none exits then as a Dirty-Work.
Dynamics
Consider an organization named Any Organization Ltd. Its top management can be a Dirty-Work Group of all or some of these people:
- CFO: Chief Financial Officer
- CIO: Chief Information Officer
- CTO: Chief Technology Officer
- CMSO: Chief Marketing and Sales Officer
- CHRO: Chief Human Resources Officer
- CLO: One who manages buildings, offices, infrastructure, canteen, transportation and all that none of the above have to worry about – the ‘Handy Man’ officer.
Let there be three Dirty-Work Group working on various projects. One of them is a high visibility project about which business community is also interested.
Each member of each group after picking the Good-Work and the Dirty-Work will also pick whether to be an interface. And if yes, then what kind of interface. Internal, External or Hierarchical. The teams which do not need to interact may not pick an External interface or pick one when needed.
