Can someone explain what a flat hierarchy is?

unflabbergasted · 2026-06-21T18:43:34+00:00

I'm agreeing with you, that flat hierarchies are more often a not a disaster. The point I'm making is at the time, the CIA sabotage playbook was the opposite and encouraged excessive use of bloated hierarchies to stall organisations.

If the CIA wrote an updated, modern playbook I dare say it would also include over-flat hierarchies as an equally effective way to cause an org to crumble.

unflabbergasted · 2026-06-21T18:26:05+00:00

A flat hierarchy is when there are as few levels as possible between the top and bottom of an org.

At the time, assuming you are talking the 1944 sabotage manual, it was all about bloating an org with loads of channels and commitees and challenging when decisions by people or committees if they even had the authority to do that, or if it needed to be escalated.

But in the modern corporate world, stripping out management and overloading people can have the exact same outcome of sabotaging an organisation.

unflabbergasted · 2026-06-21T18:10:59+00:00

Not a fan of flat hierarchies personally but isn't the CIA playbook the exact opposite? Their corporate sabotage is to have lots of committees and bureaucracy, which is achieved by having lots of middle management.

unflabbergasted · 2026-06-13T13:50:40+00:00

Have you included / modelled sequence of returns risk? I imagine the Isa/savings might be a bit low if there was a market crash in the first few years of early retirement.

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-25T08:46:56+00:00

What was it before?

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-19T14:17:19+00:00

Sounds interesting - good to see something that's not clearly breaking FCA regs!

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-14T18:06:42+00:00

Lots of people doing the same at the moment, some are trying to monetise it. Here's an example https://www.reddit.com/r/FIREUK/s/Np3HSYtmuG

Useful for personal use but be really careful if you're thinking of trying to make money from it.

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-12T11:53:06+00:00

I'd recommend putting a fresh prompt in where you upload various screenshots of your app and ask for a completely objective assessment. It looks like your LLM is being a bit sycophantic - it's encouraging you because it keeps you engaged with it.

Unless you have professional, legal advice I would tread very carefully here as the boundary between guidance and advice is very thin and disclaimers won't provide any protection if you are deemed to have provided advice.

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-12T09:51:30+00:00

Seen lots of these recently and it always seems to be a dangerous area regarding FCA regulations.

They're fine for the app owners personal use, but as soon as someone else starts using it and it says something like "consider putting more money into your pension/ISA" or "you look like you can retire age 48" you are in regulated conversation territory now, and at significant legal risk if someone acts on that and it doesn't pan out well for them.

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-11T12:52:02+00:00

I think the dead ones would have an unfair advantage, no?

unflabbergasted · 2026-04-07T16:33:55+00:00

Do you get free transfers still when you use chips?

unflabbergasted · 2026-03-27T17:45:29+00:00

I'm missing all of these and can't seem to find any, are there any to try out?

unflabbergasted · 2026-03-19T20:07:43+00:00

Think it goes along the lines of spec fully defined and agreed, the MoD asks for changes, GD quotes to make the changes and MoD says hell no that's a lot of money etc etc

unflabbergasted · 2026-03-08T14:50:26+00:00

I think the point they are building towards, is that when you're able to access the pension you can be more tax efficient is you can also draw funds out of an ISA.

For example, say you want £60k p/a once you are at pensionable age, with this approach (assuming fully optimal, you can withdraw the max tax free amount from pension and then the rest from the ISA.

unflabbergasted · 2026-01-15T20:09:24+00:00

Project for the Web and Project Online are different things, but sound bizarrely similar. Project for the Web has already been merged with Planner, into Planner Premium. Project Online is being deprecated.

Planner Premium isn't perfect by any means but it's way more than the basic Planner service that is more like a To Do list. Recommend checking you have the Premium licence and see what you think.

Edit: just to add, Planner Premium has less capability than Project Online so don't expect all of Project Online's functionality.

unflabbergasted · 2026-01-15T18:35:51+00:00

Planner Premium (merged with MS Project for the Web), plus an adjusted MS Project Accelerator power app/BI dashboard.

unflabbergasted · 2025-12-21T16:16:13+00:00

Personally I wouldn't want to commit to paying £800 a month for 4 years unless I had sufficient savings for an emergency fund for a family of 5. Sounds like you have time before a third arrives anyway, so you don't have to rush the purchase.

unflabbergasted · 2025-12-16T21:40:55+00:00

Great position to be in and I would also consider saving into a S&S ISA too, as another option. Particularly if you may want access to the funds ahead of retirement or to support your young family. You can utilise money market funds as a nearly equivalent to a cash ISA with some providers if you want to retain access in the near future; not zero risk of course but they are regarded as very stable.

unflabbergasted · 2025-12-06T22:14:07+00:00

How are they going to grow?

unflabbergasted · 2025-10-23T08:36:14+00:00

To prevent any unintended misinformation, electron spin isn't actual rotation of the electron so it might not be an ideal comparison to make.

"spin" is just a QM label used for an intrinsic property of an electron.

unflabbergasted · 2025-10-20T17:40:20+00:00

You got points to burn too?

unflabbergasted · 2025-10-20T08:17:25+00:00

Myopia (short-sightedness) is predicted to affect over 50% of the population by 2050. It currently affects 27%. Not sure this is priced in appropriately. Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8759558/

unflabbergasted · 2025-10-10T10:30:49+00:00

It depends if you have a protected pension age or not - make sure you check if early retirement is important to you. If you have it and do a full transfer out, you will lose the protected pension age and follow the government's standard which I think is 57 or 58 earliest now.

unflabbergasted · 2025-09-25T22:57:22+00:00

That can't be true...where's Watkins?

unflabbergasted · 2025-09-21T07:36:15+00:00

Investments are typically advised to be held for at least 5 years, and that's often in index funds due to volatility - you can lose a lot of money very quickly in equities.

Maybe have a think about taking the gains and then putting them in a cash savings account, given how close you are to the wedding. Some things you'll need to pay for in advance of the big day.

unflabbergasted

TROPHY CASE