Organisations are filled with people fighting over meaning to gain and maintain power in uncertain and rapidly evolving environments. It's challenging for an Organisation Designer to grasp the issue and effectively implement the best solution in this context. Even if they find the right solution, circumstances will shift, rendering it no longer optimal.
Surely, an organisational design approach that acknowledges the constant changes in the world and our frequent misjudgments would be more effective. If we accept this perspective, we would continuously identify organisational issues from the ground up, top-down, and outside in; consistently experiment with new organisational designs to determine their effectiveness, scale up those that succeed, and repeat the process continuously.
I don't see this continuous improvement process in your organisation's design patterns.
Also, it would be helpful if you sent readers to the Unfix model, which provides a pattern library for org design.
One question: do you treat a internal platform product (like DevEx) as a product, with PM senior roles as important part of it?
In which part of the organization should they live? Pros and Cons for putting it in Eng, but I often see Eng. Leads struggling a lot with a setup outside ProductOrg.
I think it very much has to do with whether the leaders of eng, PM, and design see themselves as a single team (e.g., the identity is with overall R&D, not product vs. eng)
Thanks John, so many helpful ideas and reminders!
Thanks Arne!
Solid write-up.
Naming the things/concepts properly is so so helpful.
Organisations are filled with people fighting over meaning to gain and maintain power in uncertain and rapidly evolving environments. It's challenging for an Organisation Designer to grasp the issue and effectively implement the best solution in this context. Even if they find the right solution, circumstances will shift, rendering it no longer optimal.
Surely, an organisational design approach that acknowledges the constant changes in the world and our frequent misjudgments would be more effective. If we accept this perspective, we would continuously identify organisational issues from the ground up, top-down, and outside in; consistently experiment with new organisational designs to determine their effectiveness, scale up those that succeed, and repeat the process continuously.
I don't see this continuous improvement process in your organisation's design patterns.
Also, it would be helpful if you sent readers to the Unfix model, which provides a pattern library for org design.
Great article.
One question: do you treat a internal platform product (like DevEx) as a product, with PM senior roles as important part of it?
In which part of the organization should they live? Pros and Cons for putting it in Eng, but I often see Eng. Leads struggling a lot with a setup outside ProductOrg.
I think it very much has to do with whether the leaders of eng, PM, and design see themselves as a single team (e.g., the identity is with overall R&D, not product vs. eng)