Dana Bell

I came across the word adhocracy quite by mistake, although I've seen it in action on many occasions. The Office Life has this definition:
Adhocracy [n.] A minimally structured business where teams are formed as they are needed to address specific problems.

The Wikipedia definition notes that
"Adhocracy is very good at problem solving and innovations and thrives in a changing environment. It requires sophisticated and often automated technical systems to develop and thrive."

Project-based organizational structures can be more focused on tasks that need to be started, developed and completed rather than on developing a system that needs daily maintenance. I have seen many such "task-forces" that are successful, however, in business, this is not so definite. Organizations use a form of adhocracy in the formation of "committees" to look at various issues. In theory, these committees should be equally successful, however, in practice they lack some of the key ingredients necessary for development and execution of a adhocratic approach to problem-solving.

Instead of including specialists that cover every aspect of the projects, such structure only include leaders of departments just because their department will be affected.
Many of the members are there to make a show of the process.
And finally, instead of shifting control to experts in their respective fields, administrators are there to preserve their powers.

Wordspy's citation using this word really shows the twists that can come about in such a system.
"One beginning point might be to compel the attorney general actually to manage the Justice Department and its investigative agencies in accordance with laws and executive orders going back to shortly after the Civil War. But other laws and traditions have given the U.S. attorneys considerable independence, making the Justice Department a scattershot 'adhocracy' rather than a tightly run, top-down bureaucracy."
—David Burnham, "The F.B.I.," The Nation

More from Wikipedia...
"Alvin Toffler noted in his book Future Shock that adhocracies will get more common and are likely to replace bureaucracy in the near future. He also wrote that they will most often come in form of a temporary structure, formed to resolve a given problem and dissolved afterwards. An example are cross-department task forces.

"Downsides of adhocracies can include "half-baked actions", personnel problems stemming from organization's temporary nature, extremism in suggested or undertaken actions, and threats to democracy and legality rising from adhocracy's often low-key profile."