The org chart shows reporting. The network shows work.

01The surprise

Nobody told us they were changing that.

The Platform team retires an internal API. It’s on their roadmap and in their channel. Three teams depend on it, and two of them find out when their builds fail. Everyone did their job. Nobody had written down that the dependency existed.

The org chart says Platform reports to Engineering and Partnerships reports to Commercial. It says nothing about the fact that Partnerships can’t ship a renewal without Platform’s pricing service. Reporting lines are drawn; working lines are folklore.

A written network turns those working lines into agreements: what one team provides, what the other relies on, and who needs to hear before it changes. The next change arrives with notice.

02The distinction

The org chart shows who reports. The network shows who relies.

Both are true at once. Reporting lines govern careers and budgets. Working lines govern whether the work gets done. Link team charters through what they provide and rely on, and the network of teams appears, ready to read.

03Three principles

Draw the working lines, and keep them current.

1. 1

   Name what flows, not just who connects.

   “Partnerships works with Platform” is a relationship. “Platform provides the pricing service; Partnerships relies on it for every renewal” is an agreement. Write down what crosses the boundary, so both teams know what they’re protecting.

2. 2

   Agree on notice before you need it.

   Each agreement can say how much notice a change needs and who must hear: two weeks for a breaking change, say, with the Partnerships lead informed. That turns a surprise into a decision someone can plan for.

3. 3

   Link charters at the edges, not the middle.

   Teams link through what they provide and rely on, not by sharing everything. Each team’s working conversations stay inside its own boundary. The network needs the agreements, not the gossip.

04In Particulars

A map of the company that follows the work.

Linked charters form the network. Each team sees its own orbit: the team it is part of, its sub-teams, the teams it mentions and the teams that mention it. The mentions come from sentences in the charters themselves, so the map changes when they do.

Illustrative orbit. Every edge traces back to a sentence in a charter.

05What becomes possible

See the company as it actually works.

Once teams are linked by what they provide and rely on, you can see the real shape of the organization: the team everyone depends on, the teams nobody mentions, and the change that will ripple further than its authors think. Reorganizations start from evidence instead of boxes.

• Know who to tell before a change ships.
• Find the team every other team is quietly waiting on.
• Redesign around the work, not the reporting lines.

“Most of the particulars live between teams.”

The Particulars thesis