Structure defines an organization chart, people's jobs, and how work flows across the organization. A poorly designed organizational structure can pit people against one another, send people many directions at once, expect the unreasonable, undermine teamwork, destroy customer focus, and reduce professional competence.
Structure defines an organization chart, people's jobs, and how work flows across the organization.
A poorly designed organizational structure can pit people against one another, send people many directions at once, expect the unreasonable, undermine teamwork, destroy customer focus, and reduce professional competence.
Great people can overcome most structural problems. But why waste talent and time on self-imposed obstacles?
A healthy structure does not define jobs in high-level phrases like "manager of infrastructure" or vague language like roles and responsibilities.
Rather, every box on an organization chart should be defined as a line of business, defined by what it "sells" rather than what it does or what it knows.
The result: jobs that are well focused, results oriented, entrepreneurial, and have a minimum of conflicts of interests.
Structural Cybernetics identifies the five different types of businesses found within any corporation, company, or organization -- five fundamental building blocks of structure:
- Service Bureaus keep things running smoothly, safely, reliably, and efficiently; includes both infrastructure operations and support services.
- Technologists design, build, repair, and support solutions; includes both applications and infrastructure engineering.
- Coordinators help others come to consensus on policies and plans, like architecture, business plans, business continuity, security, information policies, etc.
- Consultancies are the sales and marketing functions within internal service providers, include the “account representative” role and client communications.
- Audit inspects and judges others, both clients and within IT.
This framework provides a clear language for discussing alternative organizational structures.
Structural Cybernetics also defines clear principles for assembling the building blocks into an organization chart. This avoids designing impossible jobs, conflicts of interests, scattered accountabilities, and other common problems.
- Gaps: A full-service organization includes all of the functional building blocks. If any are missing, critical activities will not occur with reliability and quality.
- Rainbows: Don't combine building blocks unless you have strong business reasons (no rainbows).
- Scattered campuses: Keep all related lines of business (each high-level building block) together under a common boss. The job of this boss is to cultivate the function, and to ensure that the domain is covered completely and without overlaps.
- Inappropriate substructure: Layer by layer, divide people up based on the building block's product line, i.e., based on their specialty. The nature of each building block determines the appropriate basis for structure within that part of the organization.
Changes in the organization chart inevitably induce changes in workflows, so both must be designed together. Structural Cybernetics also includes a process which sorts out the diverse work flows that tie the organization chart together. For every project or service, there’s a “prime contractor” responsible for all aspects of delivery; and the first job of the prime is to subcontract with peers for their products and services. This way, teams form dynamically, with clear individual accountabilities for results and a clear chain of command.
Structural Cybernetics can be used to analyze the pros and cons of an existing (or proposed) organization chart, as well as to design a new structure. It also provides the foundation for high-performance teamwork, with clear individual accountabilities for results and a clear chain of command within each team.
The Structural Cybernetics implementation process is open and participative, building deep understanding and commitment within the leadership team. Structural Cybernetics principles are the key to productive participation. Instead of territorialism and battles of opinions, leaders argue the trade-offs of various design alternatives in a rational, fact-based design process.
For a more complete discussion of structure, click here....