Processes and system access are split up so that few people can see any process end to end, and the sponsor who holds the integrated view collects the power that comes with it.
An example
When an airline's incoming chief financial officer asked for an end-to-end trace of how ticket revenue moved from booking to the general ledger, nobody below the outgoing vice president of revenue accounting could produce one. Over five years he had split the process into nine compartments, among them fare audit, interline settlement, refunds, and loyalty liability, each with its own team, its own system access, and a segregation-of-duties rationale the auditors had accepted. Each team lead could explain their slice in detail. None could say what happened at the seams, where the adjustments were made. Only the vice president held the full view, and he was the person the chief executive called with any question about revenue. The incoming chief financial officer asked for a process map maintained by someone else as part of the handover. The vice president said that would take a quarter and might raise compliance concerns.
Why it works
Each cut comes wrapped in a real benefit, segregation of duties, compliance, smaller exposure to a breach, deeper expertise, so accepting the design looks like best practice. Narrow jobs are easier to defend, and line managers can say they only own their slice. Anyone seeking the integrated view must request access across compartments and justify a need to know to the sponsor's gatekeepers, at the risk of looking overreaching or careless about security, and that cost grows with every compartment. It depends on plausible reasons for each cut, control over access management, enough complexity for fragmentation to look like sensible design, and no auditor, regulator, or successor demanding the whole picture.
The thinking behind it
Jeffrey Pfeffer Pfeffer's Power in Organizations (1981) traces power largely to structural position, including control of information and centrality in networks of dependence. Splitting a process into compartments leaves one person at the center of every seam, the only one others must go through to see the whole. An end-to-end process map maintained by someone else removes that centrality, which is why the sponsor resists it.
Herbert A. Simon Simon's Administrative Behavior (1947) shows that whoever supplies the premises of a decision, its information and procedures, influences the decision. Executives who take every question about the whole process to the sponsor receive their premises from one person. Rotating roles across compartments and talking to each compartment lead directly create other sources of those premises.
Warning signs
Nobody but the sponsor can produce an end-to-end trace of a process on request. Every cut has a security, compliance, or specialization rationale. Team leads explain their own slice well and the seams not at all. Access across compartments requires the sponsor's approval. Executives call the sponsor with any question about the whole. Handover requests are met with estimates of months and warnings about compliance.
How to defend yourself
Each cut is usually justified on paper. Ask who ends up holding the whole picture, and whether that was an outcome or a design goal.
- Ask for a current end-to-end process map, maintained by someone other than the sponsor, as part of any handover or annual review.
- Commission a third-party process audit that traces several transactions from start to finish.
- Rotate role assignments across compartments so more people see the seams.
- Talk to each compartment lead separately about what they hand off and receive, and assemble the picture yourself.
If the sponsor resists, the resistance tells you where the power sits.
How a leader shuts it down
Boards and successors can require a current end-to-end map of every critical process, maintained independently of the person who runs it. Rotate people across compartments and require cross-training. When fragmentation is justified by compliance or security, ask the compliance function to confirm the rationale and to name who holds the integrated view, and make sure that person is not the only one who can explain it.