Organizational anti patterns

Question 1

Analysis Paralysis

Answer 1

A project stalled in the analysis phase, unable to achieve support for any of the potential plans of approach

Question 2

Bleeding edge

Answer 2

Operating with cutting-edge technologies that are still untested and/or unstable, leading to cost overruns, under-performance, and/or delayed delivery

Question 3

Design by committee

Answer 3

The result of having many contributors to a design, but no unifying vision

Question 4

GroupThink

Answer 4

A collective state where group members begin to (often unknowingly) think alike and reject differing viewpoints

Question 5

Management by perkele

Answer 5

Authoritarian style of management with no tolerance of dissent

Question 6

Management by Objectives

Answer 6

Management by numbers, focus exclusively on quantitative management criteria, when these are non-essential or cost too much to acquire

Question 7

Mushroom management

Answer 7

Keeping employees “in the dark and fed manure” (also “left to stew and finally canned”)

Question 8

Revolving door

Answer 8

An organization or team with high staff turnover that struggles to be effective, especially in maintaining continuity or business knowledge

Question 9

Seagull management

Answer 9

management in which managers only interacts with employees when a problem arises, when they “fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, then fly out.”

Question 10

Vendor lock-in

Answer 10

Making a system excessively dependent on an externally supplied component

Question 11

Bystander apathy

Answer 11

A state where a decision is known to be wrong, but the people who notice this do nothing because it affects a different group of people