organizational debt

Definition

The accumulated costs and inefficiencies from poor management decisions, outdated processes, and suboptimal organizational structure. Like technical debt, but for your org chart and workflows.

Example Usage

We have massive organizational debt from the three acquisitions—nobody knows who reports to whom and we have five different expense systems.

Origin

Coined in analogy to 'technical debt' in the 2010s

Fun Fact

Organizational debt often includes zombie initiatives—projects that should have been killed years ago but keep shambling along consuming resources.

Source: Organizational design and management theory terminology

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