The Shape of Coordination

An accessible introduction to coordination science, explaining why organizations systematically produce opacity and how geometric constraints shape what coordination patterns are possible.

Key ideas:

1. **Coordination Has Shape**: Just as physical objects have geometry, coordination patterns have topology. Some shapes are stable, others unstable.

2. **Why Organizations Lie**: Opacity isn't moral failure—it's geometric necessity. Beyond certain scales, full transparency creates coordination overhead that exceeds capacity.

3. **The Seven Operators**: O1 (Attractor), O2 (Memory), O3 (Boundary), O4 (Coupling), O5 (Compression), O6 (Agency), O7 (Interface) compose to create all coordination patterns.

4. **Conservation Laws**: Six laws constrain what's possible, derived from proven impossibility theorems.

5. **Seeing the Shape**: Once you understand coordination geometry, you see the same patterns everywhere—in cells, companies, and societies.

This article serves as the gateway to coordination science for general audiences, connecting abstract theory to everyday organizational experience.