What is a committee organization structure, and what are its merits and demerits?

A committee is a group of people specifically designated to perform some administrative or managerial function collectively — not a standalone structure type, but a complement to others.

Definitions (Newman: "a group of people specifically designated to perform some administrative work"; Allen: "a body of persons appointed or elected to meet on an organized basis for the consideration of matters brought before it").

Merits:

• Pooling of knowledge — multiple perspectives on complex questions
• Effective coordination and communication across units
• Motivation through participation of employees

Demerits:

• Slow decisions — scheduling, discussion, consensus
• Most expensive form (many senior people's time)
• Difficult to maintain secrecy — relevant for security topics!
• Compromise — decisions tend toward the lowest common denominator

Security angle: security steering committees / boards are standard ISM practice — ideal for policy approval and risk acceptance (pooled judgment, shared accountability), terrible for incident response (too slow; that's what task forces are for).

Go deeper:

• Committee (Wikipedia) — how deliberative bodies pool judgment, and why that makes them slow.