Divisional Organizational Structure

Divisional Organizational Structure is divided into semi-autonomous units or divisions. Each division is responsible for its own set of activities. However, often these different divisions can serve the same audience/user.

Brian Chesky’s comments in his interview with Lenny paraphrased: Divisional Organizational Structure can lead to dysfunction. You end up accumulating technical debt because different divisional teams operate varied stacks. New promising initiatives are siloed as a side-project instead of becoming mainstream. Eventually, you’ve each team doing 5 things instead of 5 teams doing 1 thing.

• In such environments, product managers are compelled to prioritize advocacy and relationship-building to secure resources.
• This dynamic can inadvertently breed a culture of politics, where success hinges more on interpersonal influence than on merit or organizational needs.
• The resulting bureaucracy further obfuscates roles, diminishes accountability, and fosters complacency.
• Finally, this promotes the tendency to prioritize individual interests over the company’s collective goals, often leading to redundant meetings and discussions that do not directly contribute to progress.