One of the things that frustrates me the most is organizational friction. I’m talking here about all of those things in an organizations which you know are simple to do, but difficult to get done. Everytime I come across someone who says that something can’t be done because they need approval from a Line Manager, CIO, Gordon Brown, Elvis it’s just friction. It’s purpose is to slow you down, or even to stop you.
Dilbert highlighted this today:
What makes this cartoon, like so many, funny is that it’s very close to the truth.
Friction produces two effects – heat and wear. The same is true for organization friction, especially when it’s used against people trying to get on with their job. People worry that organizations without friction will run out of control and fall apart. What these people forget, though, is that no-one has yet invented a perpetual motion engine.
Many organizations would perform a lot better if they went after the friction rather than trying to increase the friction to retain the control.
For those of you wondering, yes I have some across some friction today.
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Graham Chastney 
well in my experience this friction is caused by individuals in the business who have little budgets that they control. They seek to control their bucket of cost and the only way they can do that is by making life difficult for you.
You on the otherhand see the cost and convert it into man-hours, and decide to gladly trade those man-hours for the capability you want. Trouble is the budget holder has no ability to trade man-hours into money, so you have a problem.
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Reminds me of the days when a VP needed to extend my contract @ CSC 🙂
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