This week in the pm-clinic discussion forum:

I’m a development lead in a high powered web development company. We beat competitors on speed and quality technology, and engineers like me do the closest thing to project management. We avoid specs and docs, working in small enough teams that fast communication is pretty easy. There is a strong anti-management vibe in the company, as well as a hyper proactive “do it now and fix it later” mentality, but those attitudes have served us really well – our company has been super successful.

The problem is that our organization has grown from 100 to 2000+ people in a handful of years. Many engineers work on several projects at a time, including lots of remote programmers. We have a high number of virtual teams and a super flat hierarchy – things that are liberating, but are suddenly annoying at times. The consensus driven approach we have isn’t as speedy as it was.

My dilemma has two parts:

Tactics: I’m more willing to try changes than many of my peers and reports. So how do I add in more management-y things, a little more structure and clearer division of ownership, without rocking the boat and being called a weenie? (Our lingo for fuddy-dutty management types). I fear it’s a one way ride: These things I’ll add will never be removed and it’s a downward spiral of over-management (And my team of engineers fears this too).

Strategy: How do you work to shift the culture the company was founded on and take pride in, when it’s not working as well anymore? I can’t say I’ve worked anywhere that handled this successfully – either the success ends, or people leave, whenever leaders try to mature the culture.