This is an interactive Design Structure Matrix (DSM) where a dot indicates that the employee along the left side reports to the employee along the top. The DSM is a visibility matrix, which means that in addition to showing direct reports, we also show indirect reports. Hence, an employee is shown as reporting to his or her direct manager, as well as to his or her manager's manager and so on. We achieve this through matrix multiplication.

The term for the number of managers that an employee reports to, directly or indirectly, is fan-out and the term for the number of staff that report to a particular manager is fan-in. The manager with the largest team is hence the manager with the largest fan-in, and taking an average of the fan-out for all staff gives us a sense of the average distance to the CEO.

Depending on how the matrix is sorted, different clusters of dots indicate different things. When we sort the matrix by timezone, then location then manager—the current case—vertical lines show staff who are either physically close to each other or in the same timezone. The more spread out a vertical line is, the more spread out a manager's team members are.

You can mouse-over the matrix to reveal details about its various parts or view details about a particular manager's team by clicking anywhere on the matrix or by choosing a manager from the dropdown.

 

How spread out are teams?

Of the teams at INITECH, 23 teams are entirely in the same timezone or within two hours of the same timezone; 12 teams have a maximum time difference of 18 to 20 hours.

 

Here is a look at the most spread out of INITECH's teams:

 

Here is a look at the least spread out teams that have at least two or more staff on them: