Table of Contents: Flat versus Deep Hierarchy

Let’s say you’re creating the structure for a coffeeshop’s employee manual.

You might think in big categories:

• Customer Service
• Making Coffee
• Cleaning and Sanitation
• Company Policies
• Payroll

So you might structure your manual into large chunks, with lots of subdivisions:

Deep Hierarchy

1. Customer Service
   1. Greetings
      • Facial Expressions
        • For repeat customers
      • Standard Phrases to Use
   2. Receiving customer money
      • Standard Phrases to Use
   3. Dealing with Complaints
      • Complaints about Product
        • Price
        • Quality
      • Complaints about Service

This is called a “deep” structure because there are subdivisions within subdivisions.

Flat Hierarchy

A deep structure is not your only option. Maybe you think in a task-based way:

• Greeting customers
• Follow-up questions to orders
• Brewing the coffee
• Pouring the coffee
• Entering the order into the register
• Delivering the coffee to the customer
• Processing payments
• Ending the transaction

In this case, your structure might be flatter, with only a few sub-points:

1. Greeting customers
   • List of Standard greetings
   • Facial Expressions
2. Follow-up questions to orders
3. Brewing the coffee
4. Pouring the coffee
5. Entering the order into the register
6. Delivering the coffee to the customer
7. Processing payments
   • Cash
   • Credit
   • Gift Card
8. Ending the transaction

Either approach is acceptable, though going too far in either direction is bad. A super deep hierarchy is going to be impossible to scan. A super flat hierarchy fails to categorize topics into groups.

You simply have to decide which is more appropriate for the type of information you are conveying.