The Gray Team: Some organizations opt for the middle
in every way. These companies are filled with good people and, in many
cases, brilliant talent. The latest management methods are employed and
the latest tools are deployed. Consensus-building is a key factor in
the dynamics. But this effort to satisfy so many aspects of the problem
and so many departments of the company at the same time can drive the
product development into the doldrums of the comfy middle. At all
levels, from the top down, team members are committed to solid
collaborative engagement, yet vision and optimism are tuned out. No
matter how challenging the task is or how critical the product will be
for the company's growth, the results are going to be mediocre. Not
bad, not good, just plain...gray.

The Dictatorship: This is a scary place, but if you're
on the right side, brilliant things could happen! In this case a very
small number of individuals--possibly only one--are dragging a
semi-cooperative organization on a journey to a place only they can
envision. That journey is your project, so you better buckle up since
you're in for a wild ride. For many reasons this organizational
approach to product development and design is centralized to the
extreme, often due to a crisis, a turn-around situation, or maybe
that's just what tradition dictates. One thing to remember: Always keep
the leadership happy. If not, you're out the door the next morning. But
after you've succeeded in making the executive suite happy, you'll have
to work with the organization to carry out the details. At this point,
other individuals will try to do whatever they can to stop, delay, and
downright sabotage the project. That's the wild ride I mentioned
earlier. Fingers will be wagged at you at all levels and the final
results will depend heavily on your ability to take a deep breath and
carry on nonchalantly in spite of the adversarial approach. If the
right decisions are made at that upper level, the outcome could be an
exceptional product.