> Microsoft seeks to reduce bureaucratic layers and enhance the "span of control" for managers, allowing each to oversee more employees.
If you've ever worked on large-scale organizational transformation (i.e., layoffs), you'll recognize this. 'Span of control' is the most straightforward way to systematically lean out an org chart. It's repeated over-and-over by legal and HR that your task is to eliminate roles not specific people. And it's pretty easy to look for managers of people that ... just don't manage that many people.
It's also a surprisingly effective exercise for consolidating redundant orgs. If you nix a managerial position, you'll map that manager's branch onto some other manager.
If you've ever worked on large-scale organizational transformation (i.e., layoffs), you'll recognize this. 'Span of control' is the most straightforward way to systematically lean out an org chart. It's repeated over-and-over by legal and HR that your task is to eliminate roles not specific people. And it's pretty easy to look for managers of people that ... just don't manage that many people.
It's also a surprisingly effective exercise for consolidating redundant orgs. If you nix a managerial position, you'll map that manager's branch onto some other manager.
Very imperfect, but it does work!