Hierarchy

The choice of a hierarchical system is important to the efficiency of a team. There are many to choose from but the choice needs to be made regarding the team members involved and the project. I like the idea of a leader, because it keeps everything in order. To have someone to organise and think ahead of the team is crucial to the end result. You can see how well a team worked together by the end result. Although a leader is important, communication to the leader and amongst other team members is just as important. The leader can’t organise and plan future deadlines if he doesn’t know where his team is up to. It is a vital part of the leader to tap into the knowledge and skills of the team members and bring out the best out of them.[1] Coach, trainer, facilitator or resourcers are other names for a leader[2]

In my experience there are two main types of hierarchy; pyramidal and flat. A pyramid, essentially, has a boss that makes all the decisions according to what his lackeys say. They all report to the same boss, whereas the flat hierarchy all are accountable to each other. In my opinion and experience there should always be a leader to be utilised in a flat hierarchy. If everyone is in the same boat, they have a common goal, then everyone should be accountable to each other as respect for the team members and the task and the leader should not be a dictator but as a coach, trainer, facilitator or resourcer.

One technique I know about and love is the hat system to bring out ideas and collaboration into a meeting. Every hat has a colour and is assigned to each person

White hat
This covers facts, figures, information needs and gaps. "I think we need some white hat thinking at this point..." means Let's drop the arguments and proposals, and look at the data base."

Red hat
This covers intuition, feelings and emotions. The red hat allows the thinker to put forward an intuition without any ned to justify it. "Putting on my red hat, I think this is a terrible proposal." Ususally feelings and intuition can only be introduced into a discussion if they are supported by logic. Usually the feeling is genuine but the logic is spurious.The red hat gives full permission to a thinker to put forward his or her feelings on the subject at the moment.

Black hat
This is the hat of judgment and caution. It is a most valuable hat. It is not in any sense an inferior or negative hat. The rior or negative hat. The black hat is used to point out why a suggestion does not fit the facts, the available experience, the system in use, or the policy that is being followed. The black hat must always be logical.

Yellow hat
This is the logical positive. Why something will work and why it will offer benefits. It can be used in looking forward to the results of some proposed action, but can also be used to find something of value in what has already happened.

Green hat
This is the hat of creativity, alternatives, proposals, what is interesting, provocations and changes.

Blue hat
This is the overview or process control hat. It looks not at the subject itself but at the 'thinking' about the subject. "Putting on my blue hat, I feel we should do some greener hat thinking at this point." In technical terms, the blue hat is concerned with meta-cognition.[3]

This can bring the best ideas and outcomes out of team members and has worked many times in the past.

I personally think we should have elected a team leader but we made our beds and now we have to lie in it, it just means we have to work harder as a united team to bring forth an amazing 4D environment at the Half Life 2 Fallingwater level.

At the moment we have adopted the flat hierarchy without a leader. Looking at it from the angle of time, we have wasted a lot of it because we tried to find our feet. Meetings in the initial stages of the project are extremely important because everyone understands there roles and knows where they are heading.
[1] http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-hz3u0oXAWAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR21&dq=hierarchy+systems+in+a+team+&ots=xA8Rtg9wyi&sig=bNul5PVqaLwS-8sTFSA1fWa9riA#PPR22,M1
[2] http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-hz3u0oXAWAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR21&dq=hierarchy+systems+in+a+team+&ots=xA8Rtg9wyi&sig=bNul5PVqaLwS-8sTFSA1fWa9riA#PPR22,M1
[3] http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Techniques/sixhats.htm