Contractor Bureaucracy

One of my colleagues asked me after reading my last post, if I felt that the budget-driven operations of my work as a contractor created a bureaucracy? Rather than rules or mechanized controls through a hierarchy the budget required the consistent machine-like response?

I would say that the method that the contracting group created through these processes they enforced was not bureaucratic at all. In fact I think it made the organization incredibly dynamic and nimble. It also made the projects and programs we led incredibly potent and powerful compared to our competitors equivalents. 

The world we were living in was incredibly cut-throat and usually budgets were a primary constraint, and truthfully, in the operations departments, they may have been far more limited in terms of their creativity and resources than I was. But I know that my bosses, and their bosses enjoyed the opportunity to think beyond budgets and look at what would be ideal rather than what would be cost effective.

So I suppose to circle back to your question, instead of more red-tape or bureaucracy this type of project development and future casting without being limited by budget, helped us become more powerful, dynamic and nimble in the long run.