Why Our Org Chart Is, Technically, a Feynman Diagram
Visitors to our offices frequently remark that our org chart does not look like a tree so much as a tangle of lines with arrows pointing in inconvenient directions. This is correct. Our org chart is, formally, a Feynman diagram: a sum over every possible way work could propagate through the organization, weighted by how likely each path is to actually result in a deliverable.
Most reporting relationships are straightforward incoming and outgoing lines. The complexity arises from our virtual managers — individuals who do not appear on any roster, who exist only for the brief interval of a single decision, and who are required only to make the math of accountability work out. They are never directly observed, but their effect on the final outcome is measurable and, our finance team insists, billable.
We do employ one intern whose line points backward in time. By the standard interpretation, this is simply a more senior employee moving forward, and we have adjusted their compensation accordingly. They decline to confirm or deny which direction they are headed, and we have learned not to schedule their performance review until after it has already occurred.