A stovepipe organisation is one where the structure of the organisation largely or entirely restricts the flow of information within the organisation to up-down through lines of control but inhibits or prevents cross organisational communication. Many traditional, large, organisations (especially governmental or transnational) are, or risk falling into, a stovepipe pattern. Intelligence organisations may deliberately adopt a stovepipe pattern so that a breach or compromise in one area cannot easily spread to others. A famous example of this is Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park is an estate located in the town of Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, England, which currently houses the National Museum of Computing...

 (an allied forces Second World War codebreaking centre where messages encrypted by the Enigma Machine were decrypted) where people working in one hut would not know what the people in any other hut did.

A stovepipe pattern is most likely to develop in organisations that have some or all of the following characteristics:

• Very hierarchical with sharply defined roles or areas of influence (e.g. regional sales teams)
• Long reporting lines (i.e. lots of intermediary layers of management) and narrow spans of control (each manager only has a small number of direct reports)
• Departmental organisation of Information Technology
  Information technology
  Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
  
  , Human Resources
  Human resources
  Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
  
   and similar functions, especially where applications and services are procured departmentally rather than via a central procurement section.
• Culture of suspicion or a dictatorial management style.
• Multiple sites (or sub sites within a larger site) where staff have little chance to interact on a regular basis with staff from another site.
• Formed by the merger of two organisations or the acquisition of one organisation by another.

A stovepipe pattern can be very harmful to a commercial organisation as it can lead to duplication of effort in different parts of the organisation and, in extreme cases, unhealthy competition between different branches of the organisation.

Strategies to avoid this can include:

• Centralisation of Information Technology
  Information technology
  Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
  
  , Human Resources
  Human resources
  Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who make up the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations...
  
  , Procurement and similar functions.
• Short reporting lines.
• Decentralised cross functional teams for executing one-time projects and ongoing operations.
• Fewer sites and/or movement of staff between sites.
• Increased mobility of staff between teams to promote individual and organizational breadth.
• Culture of openness and supportive management style driven from the senior management.
• Rapid integration of staff after a merger or acquisition.