[jtonz]

My company recently went through a re-org and placed one of the senior developers in a new lead engineer for R&D projects. He certainly is an excellent developer and quite a competent communicator however it really was a sudden move to shift this position into the company.

Under the surface I couldn't help but note that the lack of internal advertisement of what would be a very desirable role must have annoyed several other senior members. Additionally, it segregated a team of developers off to work on 'cool' things while the other half is left working on legacy projects.

I would agree with my companies perspective that something like this was necessary however as the author notes, the lack of involvement outside of C-level discussions was quite surprising and is likely going to backfire.

[maxxxxx]

The lack of involvement is generally a problem in companies. Not only with reorganizations but also with things like remodeling of the workplace. Instead of getting feedback from the people who eventually have to sit in that space management usually closes itself off and doesn’t explain the reasons. Once it’s done you will see a self congratulatory email how great things will be.

[wastedhours]

> it segregated a team of developers off to work on 'cool' things while the other half is left working on legacy projects

Ouch. Everything I've read about re-orgs is usually centred on not letting that happen. We went through one last year and any remotely interesting tasks absorbed by teams were shared around (along with the not so interesting tasks of the people who were bumped).

We were luck we had quite an inclusive consultation process and the radical transparency had both negative as well as positive effects, but can imagine something like that being somewhat hidden would just kill morale.