Eradication

HI Aaron,
Thanks for tis insightful feedback

Thanks for bringing up the issue about context

I wonder whether fragmented authority originates primarily in frameworks or in the organizational architecture within which those frameworks are applied.
The same framework can produce very different outcomes depending on how decision rights, accountability, incentives, governance, and escalation mechanisms are designed.
That is why I tend to see fragmented authority as an architectural property rather than a methodological one. In the same way, information latency may depend less on whether communication occurs through meetings or documentation than on how information flows are designed, maintained, and used to support decisions.
Perhaps the deeper question is not which framework to replace, but which organizational conditions continually recreate these dysfunctions across different frameworks.

I wonder whether frameworks (methodologies, approaches, whatever) actually propagate fragmented authority, or simply expose it. Most delivery frameworks assume someone has already defined decision rights, escalation paths, and governance. When authority is fragmented, I tend to see it as an organizational design issue rather than a framework issue. Unless a framework explicitly redistributes authority, I'm not sure it's the source of the fragmentation.

I am genuinely interested in your ideas, shocking or otherwise, but your post seems to be revealing an implied assumption - that project management is the primary mechanism through which organizations should coordinate work. I would counter that with the idea that the project is one consumer of organizational capabilities, not the producer of them. From this perspective, fragmented authority is usually an organizational design issue, not a project framework issue.

I would suggest reframing the question as, "Which organizational structures create fragmented authority, regardless of which delivery framework is used?" but I don't want to derail the conversation and I'm curious where you're headed.

Thank you, Robert.
These are excellent questions because they help distinguish between different levels of organizational analysis that are often discussed together but are not the same.

Question One. What do I mean by organizational architecture?
I do not see organizational architecture as something outside systems thinking. Rather, I see it as one of its practical applications.
Systems thinking is an analytical perspective. It helps us understand how elements, relationships, feedback loops, delays, incentives, constraints, and emergent behaviors interact to produce organizational outcomes.
Organizational architecture is the configuration of the organizational system through which authority, accountability, roles, governance, capabilities, information, resources, incentives, coordination mechanisms, and decision structures are arranged to enable coherent organizational action. Some aspects of that architecture are deliberately designed, while others emerge over time through organizational evolution, historical decisions, and accumulated practices.
I would also distinguish systemic from systematic. Systemic concerns the behavior of the organization as an interconnected whole. Systematic concerns performing work through structured and repeatable processes. A methodology may be systematic and may incorporate systems thinking, but methodology and systems thinking are not equivalent concepts.
In that sense:

• Systems thinking helps explain why organizational patterns emerge.
• Organizational architecture preserves, distributes, and coordinates the conditions under which those patterns are likely to emerge.
• Frameworks provide structured ways of organizing recurring patterns of work or decision-making.
• Methodologies describe how those patterns are executed in practice.

This distinction also explains why the same framework can produce very different outcomes in different organizations. The framework may remain unchanged, while the organizational architecture within which it operates does not.

Question Two. What do I mean by organizational conditions?
By organizational conditions, I mean the concrete and observable conditions that determine whether people are genuinely able to perform the responsibilities assigned to them.
These include, among others:

• Access to relevant information and organizational context;
• Legitimate decision authority;
• Clearly defined accountability;
• Appropriate knowledge and capability;
• Sufficient resources and time;
• Governance mechanisms;
• Aligned incentives;
• Clear interfaces between functions;
• Effective escalation paths;
• Timely feedback from outcomes.

These are not abstract contextual factors. They directly influence organizational behavior and organizational outcomes.
For example, assigning responsibility for resolving a cross-functional dependency has limited practical meaning if the individual lacks the authority to influence the relevant functions, cannot obtain the required resources, has no effective escalation path, or operates within incentives that encourage each function to optimize its own objectives rather than the organization's.
In such situations, the dysfunction is not primarily methodological. It is architectural. The organization has not preserved the conditions required for coherent action.

Question Three. What project work fits into the Five Verbs framework?
Any project work that produces an artefact, proposal, recommendation, decision, or deliverable requiring progressive development, evaluation, refinement, authorization, and communication can naturally fit within the Five Verbs framework.
This includes, for example:

• Business cases;
• Project charters;
• Requirements;
• Solution designs;
• Schedules;
• Estimates;
• Risk responses;
• Change requests;
• Procurement documents;
• Contracts;
• Policies;
• Reports;
• Decision papers;
• Acceptance documentation;
• Lessons learned.

They all share a common characteristic. Before becoming organizationally actionable, they typically evolve through successive stages of creation, evaluation, refinement, authorization, and communication.
The Five Verbs describe that progression in a simple and reusable way.

• Draft creates the initial version of the artefact or decision under development.
• Review evaluates it against evidence, expertise, requirements, constraints, risks, and stakeholder perspectives.
• Revise incorporates what has been learned through the review.
• Approve provides the legitimate authorization required for action.
• Distribute communicates the authorized outcome to those who must use, implement, govern, or be informed by it.

That makes the framework broadly applicable across many types of project work.
However, the framework does not, by itself, determine:

• Who has the legitimate authority to draft;
• Whose expertise should participate in the review;
• What evidence justifies revision;
• Who is authorized to approve;
• How disagreements are resolved;
• When escalation becomes necessary;
• What accountability remains after approval;
• How responsibilities are distributed following communication.

Those questions belong primarily to organizational architecture and governance rather than to the framework itself.
Consequently, the same Five Verbs can produce very different organizational outcomes.
In one organization, they may enable rapid learning, effective coordination, timely decisions, and clear accountability.
In another, they may produce repeated reviews, approval bottlenecks, fragmented authority, delayed decisions, and procedural compliance without improving outcomes.
The difference is not necessarily the framework itself. It is whether the surrounding organizational architecture preserves the conditions that allow the framework to operate coherently.
For that reason, I see standardization and organizational architecture as complementary rather than competing ideas.
Frameworks help organizations repeat valuable patterns of work and decision-making.
Organizational architecture determines whether those patterns can operate coherently by preserving the conditions required for legitimate decision-making, effective collaboration, and sustainable organizational outcomes.
For that reason, improving organizational performance often requires changing not only how work is performed, but also the organizational conditions under which that work is expected to succeed.

Thanks for presenting this angle of response