What is Organizational Design?
Organizational Design is intentionally developing the people, systems, and other resources needed for an organization to achieve its goals. It involves asking questions like:
What is your vision for where you want to be in the future?
What are your goals?
What work do you need to do to reach those goals?
What resources (people, processes, money, tools, etc.) do you need to perform the work (tasks) need do the work?
It’s sort of like project management’s bigger sibling. You ask: What is our end goal? What things do we need to think about related to that outcome – what are all the facets involved? What do we need to do – with respect to each of those facets – to achieve the outcome we want? And that involves envisioning what that future outcome really looks like – and identifying what needs to be done, change, or shift to drive you towards that future outcome.
For example – say we’re planning a running race, it may look like this:
What is our end goal? Host a family-friendly running race through our local downtown area.
What things do we need to think about related to that outcome – what are all the facets involved? This is a brainstorming activity. Registration, regulations, permits, toilets/bathrooms, weather planning/consideration, awards?, traffic management, after-race food, etc. Warning: It may be tempting to ask AI to make a plan for you for something like this. Be aware that AI can fall short here. Just remember that it’s not good at creativity thinking or understanding all the facets of any one particular situation, though it may help in generalities.
What work do you need to do to reach those goals? I’m not going to detail this step by step, but for regulations/permits – some first tasks may look like this:
Identify what permits we need – reaching out to local regulatory folks to ask
Identify if there are regulations we need to be aware of that will keep us from having a race or that we need to follow – reaching out to local regulatory folks to ask
Get any needed permits/paperwork
What resources (people, processes, money, tools, etc.) do you need to perform the work (tasks) need do the work?
Who will do each of these tasks…one individual? Multiples? If a paid individual – how much time will be involved/what is the cost to your organization?
Is there a permitting fee?
What will pay for that fee? Is this money you already have in hand? Where will it come from if not?
Organizational design is similar. You think about “what do we want from this business” – and it may be goals, outcomes, impact, the development of a specific culture or working environment, curating a specific reputation quality that your organization doesn’t have right now, etc. Then you think about what tasks and actions will get you there and what resources you need to make those tasks and actions happen.
I know it can be unclear to some when they do or don’t have good organizational design, so I also wanted to share what it can feel like to not have a planning approach to organizational design: Sometimes an organization will have goals and vision, but not think through the steps needed to achieve their goals or vision. This can result in a bit of “wandering” to try to get to the goals - people going in different directions…sometimes a feeling that there is no real direction. And if the goals are murky…the wandering feeling is even more murky. It will sometimes feel like your organization isn’t achieving what it could. For team members, it can feel like they aren’t having clear impact or value.
You can’t control every step or outcome of every action – but you can rough out the basics of what needs to happen, key milestones that will cause you to either stay on course or be red flags to indicate that you are off course, for any process or target outcome. And when you achieve (or don’t achieve) those milestones – you have the opportunity to ask: Are we on course? Have we learned something that will cause us to adjust course? Do we still like where we’re heading? Try things, assess, adjust if needed.