Mapping the Human Network to Heal Growth Pains
A fast-growing client was struggling with the friction of multiple acquisitions. We mapped their informal communication networks to bridge cultural divides, make hidden experts visible, and eliminate redundant work, ultimately smoothing their post-acquisition integration.
The Challenge
Our client’s rapid growth, fueled by acquisitions, was creating more problems than it solved. The official org chart was a fantasy. In reality, the company was a collection of disconnected “tribes”—the original team and several newly acquired ones.
Communication was breaking down. Projects stalled because no one knew who the real expert on a topic was. Different teams were unknowingly building the same features in parallel. Leadership knew they had a problem, but they were flying blind, unable to see the invisible walls that had formed between their people.
Our Approach: Making the Invisible, Visible
Before building anything, we partnered with the client’s leadership and HR to define our goals and establish strict privacy safeguards. The objective wasn’t to monitor employees, but to understand the flow of collaboration. We agreed to only analyze anonymized metadata (who talks to whom), never the content of a message.
Phase 1: Finding the Pathways We started by tracing the digital footprints of collaboration. By analyzing anonymized data from Slack, Google Calendar, and Confluence, we pieced together a map of the company’s true “nervous system.” This wasn’t about individual messages, but about patterns: who was consistently included in meetings, who was mentioned in key discussions, and who collaborated on documents.
Phase 2: Translating Data into a Map for Action This raw data was then used to build an interactive network graph. We used algorithms to answer critical business questions:
- “Where are the real teams?” Community detection algorithms ignored the org chart and showed us the actual clusters of people who worked together day-to-day.
- “Who are our hidden leaders?” Centrality analysis identified key individuals. Some were well-known experts, but others were “information brokers”—quiet but critical connectors holding disparate teams together.
This interactive map was delivered via a simple dashboard, allowing management to see their organization in a completely new light.
The Impact
The insights weren’t just interesting; they were a catalyst for immediate, targeted change.
- Eliminated Redundant Work: The graph immediately revealed two teams—one from the core company and one from an acquisition—building the same feature. Merging them didn’t just save six months of engineering time; it healed a budding “us vs. them” cultural rift.
- Supercharged Onboarding: HR used the analysis to create a “who-to-know” map for new hires, slashing the time it took for them to find the right experts and become effective.
- De-risked Key Talent: The map highlighted a single engineer who was the sole bridge between two critical teams. This prompted a proactive initiative to create a formal “guild” to distribute their knowledge, protecting the company from a single point of failure.
- Faster Project Delivery: By actively breaking down the silos the map revealed, the company saw a 15% reduction in cross-functional project timelines within two quarters.