Both Dogstar and the Order gave me hope. Dogstar gave me hope that I wasn't alone in my convictions. The Order gave me hope that we could actually change things. In terms of skills -- I arrived at both organisations with a fairly extensive skillset, but of course after the May Battle, when Alice put me in charge of Albion's MLE, I had to learn how to be an administrator, a manager, and a recruiter. I'd supervised a few people in MEU, like Jason and the occasional trainee, but to a significant extent I had no damn idea what I was doing. The relatively low number of deaths during that summer should be credited to my recruits' skills as Aurors, and not my ability to do appropriate risk assessment.

As far as the two organisational models -- well. The Order's idea of operational security was like a Gryffindor's idea of a clever plan. (You know that one, right? "All together, on three!") The Order lock was both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. We had the ability to communicate securely, which was a huge advantage at times. But this also meant that every Order member knew every other Order member. Even with a cell structure, Dogstar was nearly wiped out at one point. I think the Order could have been completely eliminated, if they'd captured and successfully interrogated even a single person who was on the Lock.