2. Success in organization design
• Build on your strengths
• As Socrates, father of Western philosophy and arguably the original disruptor, said, “Know thyself.” Go
ahead and acknowledge upfront that retooling your organization is a tough rock to tackle. Then, identify
who you are. Pinpoint the unique role that your company holds against the competition. Define where
these strengths will take you in the new world order.
• Once that is clear, chances are the way you shape your teams won’t mimic any other company’s
organizational structure. And that’s a good thing.
• You may find that teams organized around experience (rather than product features) will help drive your
organization forward; another organization may hedge its bets on DevOps teams that join IT and
development teams to collaborate in automating the infrastructure; and still another may opt for small,
cross-functional teams that tackle short-term projects and objectives quickly and move on.
• Regardless of your approach, a technology team should be built to accentuate the unique offerings and
capabilities of the company while allowing for flexibility in order to achieve strategic goals faster and
better.
3. • Go beyond lines and boxes
• At the same time, building on your strengths doesn’t mean doing
what you’ve always done.
• Start by asking how the company’s unique strengths shape how
people work and act. Balance that by asking where your company
structure isn’t currently serving your business goals.
• Most importantly, thinking beyond the org chart gives you the
chance to move decision making throughout the company so that
teams can be empowered to think AND act. This is crucial for
nimble teams and even more crucial for ongoing employee
engagement.
4. • Know your roles
• It’s expensive to find, develop and later (regretfully) let go of talent.
The best time to get your org design right is before you grow your
team. That’s right – expanding your team should happen after
you’ve clearly defined the impact you need from new roles.
• But this is a challenge; many organizations lack definition around
technical roles. The process of defining roles is traditionally the
responsibility of Human Resources (HR). However, HR departments
struggle to update and create new roles as technology advances
and business needs shift—causing frustration for the organization.
5. Failure in organization design
• Poor Planning Sets Up Organizational Change for Failure
• Often, leaders are so focused on getting their “content” solution designed
that they dive right into the design phase of organizational change without
adequately doing the upfront planning work required. This sets the effort
up for failure right from the start. Instead, identify all the conditions and
activities that must occur early to set the project up for success, like:
1) change in roles, governance, decision making, 2) stakeholders,
engagement strategy and communication , 3) Time line, resources and
strategy and 4) key initiatives and how to integrate them for maximum
speed and efficiency. Without a well-designed change process plan, a
likely outcome will be false start , resistance, and/or eventual failure.
6. • Inadequate Support from Leadership
• Organizational change does not succeed without leadership support. And
lip service is not enough.They must be active, consistently supporting the
change teams as they design and implement changes. They must be out
communicating the benefits of the change to stakeholders and listening to
and responding to their concerns. If your leaders are not prepared to stay
actively involved, perhaps it isn’t the right time for them to launch a major
change effort. Forbes magazine supports the fact leadership support
plays a crucial role for the success of organizational change, saying that
successful change initiatives start at the top and organizations should “
set up a top level team of experts reporting directly to the CEO”.
7. • Lack of Resources
• Lack of resources is one of the most common reasons why organizational
change fails in most organizations. Adoption and sustainment of change
are long term investments. They don’t occur just because an awesome
solution was designed. It has to get implemented, and then tested,refined,
and reinforced. This generally is a longer, and costlier endeavor than most
change leaders realize. If you don’t plan and resources the latter phase of
change , you’ll not realize the full benefits you set out to achieve.
8. • Priority Focus on Systems vs. People
• Leaders often focus more on the system changes than the people
that have to make and live with them. Don’t forget that while you
need to have systems in place, people who matter most “Sustained
change is always driven by people,” says Lee Colan in his article
“10 reasons efforts fail.” “Even implementing new software
successfully is more about the people who will use is, install it, train
it, and support it than it is about the system itself.”
• Be sure that your leaders equally prioritize and attend to the system
changes and the people
