Principle 6: Cluster by Professional Synergies
Cluster groups under a common boss based on similar professions.

When you combine domains under a manager, what goes best with what?

As long as you're willing to invest in teamwork, you don't need to put diverse professions under a common boss just to get them to work together.

This gives you the freedom to cluster domains by profession, and gain many kinds of synergies:

• Professional synergies: Working together in the same group encourages professional exchange -- sharing experiences, discoveries, refinements of techniques, and best practices.

• Management synergies: A manager focused on the set of similar professions better understands how to manage these specialists. He/she is a better leader and mentor, and can create a sub-culture appropriate to the profession.

• Workload synergies: A larger pool of staff can better manage workloads. When one person or group becomes too busy, the manager can temporarily assign other staff; and since professional skills are similar, there's a reasonable chance that the loaned staff will be productive.

• Negotiating power: When a profession is consolidated, its manager has more buying power and can negotiate better deals from shared suppliers. It may also be able to save money by sharing tools (e.g., software licenses).

• Career paths: A single, larger group of all those in a profession offers better career opportunities. For example, when staff are ready for a promotion, there may be supervisory positions available.

• Domain adjudication: A manager looking over the collection of similar domains resolves boundary issues, and ensures that accountabilities for emerging technologies and disciplines are clearly assigned to one group. If the profession is scattered, the top executive has to do this.

• Customer simplicity: Putting similar professions in one place makes it much easier for others to understand the structure and find the source of needed products and services.

• Product synergies: When working closely together, similar professionals can share work products. Even if solutions are customized for different clients, there may be opportunities to reuse lower-level modules and designs. At a minimum, staff can make use of others' experiences.

  Sharing in any of these forms saves time and money, and common components may improve the quality and maintainability of the organization's products. Furthermore, products are likely to be better integrated.

The simple guideline for structure is: Cluster domains based on professional synergies (not who works with whom). Put all groups in the same profession together under a common boss.