The project is comprised of several zines about the ways organizations coordinate. Each zine covers a single topic and contains an extensive collection of coordination mechanisms on that topic. They aim to help you, dear reader, by:

The Full List of Zines

The full list of filters

• Zine topics include: 
  • The organization: the foundations that everyone at your company works from
  • The work: the work your company produces
  • The people: the people that comprise your company
  • Communication and collaboration: how people interact to get the work done
  • see how these map to zine issues above

• Benefits to explore bringing to your organization include:
  • Values + Standards: internalizing the company’s beliefs and expectations
  • Trust + Execution: upholding values and standards in the run of work
  • Knowledge + Context: operating with more crossfunctional awareness
  • Joy + Connection: infusing work relationships with spirit and meaning
  • see how these map to zine issues above

• Roles are categorized by:
  • Company Leader: Someone with direct influence over the direction of the company and what is brought onto the company stage.
  • Crossfunctional Influencer: Someone who makes decisions across multiple teams or functional groups.
  • Domain Expert/Team Lead: Someone with strong command of a specific topic and/or the leader of a functional group.
  • Operator: Anyone getting work done with a command of the company’s values/standards and the inclination uphold them.
  • try filtering for the roles of others you are a stakeholder of or to

• Types of mechanisms you might be looking for are described as:
  • Nuts and Bolts: Foundational mechanisms to get started with. If you take a look around, you’ll find that most great organizations rely on their own version of this.
  • Wrenches and Hammers: Supplemental mechanisms to do more with. Many great organizations use these to close gaps or respond to challenges.
  • Factory Favorites: Lesser-utilized tactics I have come across in my research that I think more companies could benefit from trying.
  • Recipe Under Development: Research on best practices and potential impact is still underway. (And, I’d love your thoughts!)
  • A Gulp of Kool-Aid: The highest-impact, furthest-reaching tactics for everyone at the company engage with.
  • A Sip of Kool-Aid: Nice-to-have or opt-in tactics for smaller groups, like teams or working groups, to experiment with.
  • try filtering for the roles of others you are a stakeholder of or to

A note on filtering for company size

Many early readers asked me to include a filter for size of company. After lots and lots of research, I concluded that it wasn’t a very useful cut. Founders and leaders prioritize differently. A company of one may be born with a crisp mission statement, while a larger company doesn’t feel a need to define theirs. A small team building a complex product with a lot of interdependency may need to rely on planning while inertia may be enough a larger, less coupled, organization to get the right stuff done.

What’s far more useful, though it requires a bit more introspection, is to consider phase you are in for the work and what sphere of influence you are working from.

Are you laying the foundations (try Nuts and Bolts), looking to level up, or plugging a hole (try Wrenches and Hammers)? Do you want to try something out with your local team (try Kool-Aid Sip) or ensure it ripples out through your whole organization from the outset (try Kool-Aid Gulp)? For either approach, who would you need support from (try your role + another)? Do you want to do something more experimental (Factory Favorites) or stick with the tried and true (Nuts and Bolts)?