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| Who does the designing | |
| With re-engineering and STS, a design team(s) and steering committee is selected for a whole division or work process. The resulting design of this small group is imposed on many, thus creating resistance. | | Each small section designs itself. There is no imposition because the designs incorporate individual wishes. |
| Awareness of fundamental principles | |
| People are given analytical tools to redesign their work system. There is no conscious awareness of design principles and their differing impacts on behavior. The results are unworkable mixtures of principles such as supervisors as trainer, leader, coach. | | All participants are clear on the design principles. The differences between bureaucratic and democratic design principles and their impact on work are explicitly used and so are available for driving future change. |
| Implementation time lines | |
| Once the new design is in place implementation is lengthy (1 - 2 years) and driven from the top down (bureaucratic). | | Once the new design is in place implementation is immediate and driven from within each selfmanaging group (democratically) with management oversight. |
| Diffusion into the entire organization | |
| The total process typically takes years and usually doesn't spread across functional or process boundaries. One result may be that the design which emerges becomes obsolete before full implementation. | | Total process of weeks, with enthusiastic, extensive adoption. Also, they retain the ability to redesign themselves quickly and are able to continuously adapt to change. |