The Busting Bureaucracy Hackathon

In doing a review of the origin, evolution, and current status of the definition for bureaucracy (via Wikipedia and its references), I came away with the view that bureaucracy involves the following elements:

- run by non-elected personnel (this applies for government and corporate entities since neither citizens or employees elect bureaucrats),
- utilizes a hierarchical structure, and
- administers a system of fixed rules with a goal of achieving efficiency and/or governance.

Given this reference point, I think that bureaucracies are most prevalent and most powerful in large, mature organizations that are seeking efficiency and/or governance in how common challenges (e.g., how do I hire new employees) are handled.

Bureaucracy makes my job tasks (e.g., submitting an expense report) harder or easier depending on the following factors:

- the amount of time I have to spend interacting with the bureaucracy,
- the amount of training that I have to complete in order to learn how to interact with the bureaucracy to complete my task,
- the quality of support I receive when questions arise or obstacles occur in dealing with the bureaucracy,
- the number of approvals I have to obtain to progress the completion of my task,
- how close does the bureaucracy help me achieve my goals (e.g., hiring a great employee), and
- the level of flexibility/agility the bureaucracy demonstrates when dealing with exceptions to the envisioned scenarios with which their rules were determined.

You could score a bureaucracy by these factors and make a Customer Experience Index.