Design Thinking Meets Org Design
According to Gartner, Organizational Design and Change Management are top priorities for HR in 2023.
Not sure how to get started?
As part of the HR.Hackathon Alliance’s virtual skills lab, I was honored to recently host org design experts Jodie Goulden, Cynthia Escamilla, and Seema Patel to explore the topic of “Design Thinking Meets Org Design”.
These are the question areas we covered and some key insights from the panelists that stuck with me:
What is organization design?
Org design is much more than pushing around boxes on an org chart. It is a purposeful, holistic look at the way that work gets done in an organization — from structure to process, metrics, talent, and capabilities. Org design is about improving aspects of this holistic system in service of the company’s strategy.
Guiding leaders along this journey means first acknowledging that an org chart is a very tangible outcome that they can wrap their heads around. Then, it’s about helping them understand that org design produces other deliverables such as a roadmap, a change strategy, and a communication plan.
Org design in a post-Covid world means helping organizations become more agile by examining the underlying processes of how work gets done across the organization and identifying what’s the most value-added work. Another key feature of post-Covid org design is collaboration and how to truly integrate knowledge sharing by re-designing roles and re-thinking information flow and supporting technology. Another area that’s on leaders’ minds right now is how to attract and retain talent by rethinking career pathing opportunities.
Overall, the panelists observe an evolution of org design towards becoming more inclusive and transparent by inviting more people into the design process beyond just the executive leadership team.
What are key pain points that org design addresses?
Often, the impetus for an org design project is to support a shift in a company’s strategic direction. Sometimes though, the org design opportunity might not be as obvious, and the org designer must uncover the root cause that needs to be addressed. For example, leaders might initially talk more about symptoms such as “We are too slow,” or “We need to become more competitive.” By asking questions like “What will happen if we don’t change?” the org designer can start to uncover the real pain points that are driving the change.
Companies that desire to instill an innovation mindset in their organization, want to analyze where innovation sits within an organization and how time is allocated to innovation activities. Another way to think about it is whether Innovation is a function within the organization or whether innovation is a capability that’s embedded across the company. Org design’s role then is to determine how to provide space and resources to help either approach to innovation grow.
When it comes to hybrid work, the panelists are seeing a shift in role design towards clearly defining hand-offs with other groups as well as building connectivity within teams and with critical stakeholders. Team formation when not all members are in the same location is another theme in hybrid org design as well as how to enable leaders to manage dispersed teams. There are also implications around mobility and what it means in a hybrid world. From an org design perspective, accountability and decision-making are areas that might be impacted in this context.
What are key steps of a typical org design project?
For an org design effort to be effective, change management should be introduced at the very beginning of the project to help bring people along.
The first step in an org design project is usually some sort of a diagnostic to identify the problem that needs to be solved.
The second step is to identify whether structural changes are needed based on how and where the work is shifting. The outcome of this step is to define the future organizational model.
The third step is to identify how to create integration across key processes that will enable the new structure to work.
The fourth step is all about talent: What are the skills and capabilities that are needed for this new organization and how do they get developed?
The last step is the implementation of the new model which might include how to activate the new model, how to engage the leadership team, and how to bring everyone along on the journey.
Where does design thinking come in?
Org design and human-centered design share related steps, practices, and mindsets such as being conscious about who should be included in the design effort and whom we need to co-create with, being curious about the root cause we want to solve for and approaching org design work with empathy.
We all have a limited perspective and if we want to understand what it feels like to work in a specific function or business, we might conduct interviews with the people that are doing the work and design journey maps of their experience.
Testimonials can be a powerful way of infusing storytelling to help leaders understand the current employee experience.
We also can apply prototyping when testing a new org design. Key guiding principles include how to minimize business disruption and consider organizational readiness. These considerations can aid in determining what prototyping opportunity to pursue. For example, if you are launching a service center, a prototype might be conducting “A Day in a Life” simulations to identify possible breakdowns of the model.
What are tips for how HR professionals can get started with org design?
Acknowledging the busy schedule of HR professionals, the panelists recommend getting started with org design by integrating its principles into existing projects, especially by bringing in more people into the initial diagnostic.
Another good idea is to start small. Your first org design project can be for one team, the next one for a business unit or a geography, and then for the entire organization. This scaling approach helps you to experiment, learn, and create small wins along the way.
Another tip is to make sure that as an HR leader you are at the table when strategy is being discussed and getting versed in analyzing workforce implications.
The panelists also shared the following org design skill building resources:
- Book “Zone to Win — Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption” by Geoffrey Moore
- Organization Design Forum
- USC Marshall Center for Effective Organizations
- Cornell University “Organization Design”
You can watch the full video recording of the panel discussion here.
I am curious: What else is top of mind for you when it comes to pairing org design with design thinking?
Note: This article was originally published as part of the Design Thinking for HR LinkedIn Newsletter.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Design Thinking for HR is a biweekly LinkedIn newsletter that aims to inspire HR professionals to experiment with the human-centered design framework. The newsletter is curated by Nicole Dessain who is a talent management and employee experience leader, founder of the HR.Hackathon Alliance, and a Northwestern University instructor. Nicole is currently writing her first book about Design Thinking for HR. Join the Early Readers’ Community here.
