[dasil003]

IMHO this is wishful thinking. There are thousands and thousands of questions you could pose in this way, each with a range of answers depending on many details specific to the job to be done. Even just designing a single experiment that is not subject to biases of artificial metrics or incumbent market momentum is incredibly difficult.

For instance your span of control question depends on how much individual bandwidth is needed between the levels, which in turn depends on the nature of the work and how it interacts with partner functions and whether it can be routinized or whether there is an aspect of creative problem solving.

It’s a pleasant fantasy to imagine we could get definitive answers using science but it presumes there is a universal maximum when in fact there are many local maxima depending on goals and the individual strengths and weaknesses you’re actually dealing with. And even then org structure is a pretty blunt instrument which is always a huge tradeoff. All orgs rely on extra-organizational effort to address critical problems, whether it be through formal working groups or just individual hustle and resourcefulness.