There are all kinds of businesses out there in the world, but there is one type, where chaos is king, and the chaos naturally occurs as a result of the style of business, the processes, the work products, the types of customers.

It’s what we call a NOCO, a Naturally Occurring Chaotic Organization.

Don’t worry!  If your organization is a NOCO, then you’re in good company…in many ways you are more like an advertising agency, NASA, a movie studio, or a pro football team than you are most “normal” businesses.

NOCOs are different. In a NOCO, chaos is not about bad management, but just signals the need for a different type of management. Is your organization a NOCO? Here is a simple quiz you can take — non-scientific, for sure, but it sounds pretty valid to all of our NOCO clients.

There are all kinds of businesses out there in the world, but there is one type, where chaos is king, and the chaos naturally occurs as a result of the style of business, the processes, the work products, the types of customers.

It’s what we call a NOCO, a Naturally Occurring Chaotic Organization.

Don’t worry!  If your organization is a NOCO, then you’re in good company…in many ways you are more like an advertising agency, NASA, a movie studio, or a pro football team than you are most “normal” businesses.

NOCOs are different. In a NOCO, chaos is not about bad management, but just signals the need for a different type of management. Is your organization a NOCO? Here is a simple quiz you can take — non-scientific, for sure, but it sounds pretty valid to all of our NOCO clients.

There are three dimensions in which NOCO chaos grows faster than most businesses. The first dimension is what we call project-client complexity. You can substitute the word “stakeholder” for “client” if your organization serves primarily internal clients.

Now, let’s add another layer on. Let’s add delivery team complexity. The delivery team are the people who actually produce the work, or deliver the service.

Sounding familiar? If not, then yours is probably not a NOCO. But if the sum of your scores is starting to scare you (like a 30 or more), here are the graduate-level level questions, the dimension of work-stability and complexity.