Lyndall UrwickScientific management writings, 1930s–50s
Classical doctrine: no supervisor should directly oversee more than five or six subordinates whose work interlocks, because coordination burden grows faster than headcount.
Elliott JaquesRequisite Organization, 1989
Structure should follow the complexity of work: layers and spans are set by time-span of discretion, not arbitrary ratios.
The EclipseFrontiers® LensSpans are set by the work's complexity, not the org chart's symmetry.