Disadvantages of a Flat Hierarchy

The disadvantage of a flat hierarchy is that time is often wasted because the integration workspace changes frequently, requiring developers to do frequent Bringover transactions, builds, and tests in order to keep their source base up-to-date. There is a cumulative effect of doing Putback transactions; the first developer to do a Putback resolves only one set of changes, the next developer resolves two, and so on till the last developer, who must resolve all of the changes that have been made within her development group.