The Roll-Up Trap
When aggregation layers masquerade as management layers
Ask most companies to see a deck on how they work, and you are likely to see a slide with a pyramid on it. There are levels. The levels have time ranges and map to levels of the org hierarchy. It looks nice and simple — everything at the bottom rolls up to the top. Except the simplicity can be highly misleading.
How many things on this pyramid are actually managed? With real accountability? With an investment thesis? How many things on the pyramid are renegade categories or buckets that somehow have found a place in the hierarchy? They aren't really managed, and their sole purpose is to aggregate, not provide context. In other words, their sole job is to make the pyramid nice and simple, not help anyone get their job done.
What you often find are extra layers that serve only one purpose: aggregation. Not insight. Not accountability.
If a layer mainly exists to group or summarize work, consider treating it as a categorization scheme rather than making it part of the hierarchy. Not everything needs to sit inside the pyramid. Some concepts work better as tags, themes, or roll-up views that help organize work without pretending to manage it.