COMMONS Lab
Make real authority visible and contestable without replacing every relationship with hierarchy.
System context
Projects form voluntarily and a rotating committee allocates budget. Staff report high autonomy but uneven access.
Your role
You facilitate an organisational review in a manager-free R&D lab of 180 people.
Constraints
- The lab rejects permanent managers.
- Budget decisions must remain fast.
- Maintenance work cannot be postponed.
Evidence pack
Network concentration
Twelve people attend 71% of project kickoffs.
Access gap
New staff join flagship projects half as often.
Dissent cost
Open criticism of consensus decisions is called uncollaborative.
Maintenance burden
The same group repeatedly takes low-status maintenance.
Interactive simulation
Three connected decisions
Make real authority visible and contestable without replacing every relationship with hierarchy.
This case, its world, organisations, places and events are original Methodfield material and do not reproduce a protected fictional universe.