Let's get through some definitions first.
Organisation Design: Design an organisation to have the right structure (teams, roles, accountabilities) to meet its purpose with the support of efficient systems and processes. It's a sense making process - how are we set up to deliver value to our customers?
Why do we do it?
- Build role clarity - separate role from soul
- Reduce hierarchy - acknowledge complexity
- Increase clarity of accountability
- Capture organisational knowledge (for handover, growth, improvement)
Four zones
Key Function: A key function is something that has to be done in your business - comes with a set of accountabilities in an area of a business. Examples might include Lead the Organisation, Build Healthy Culture, Maintain Financial Security, Deliver to Customers etc.
Accountability: An outcome assigned to a team, a role, a key function. They will be 'held to account' to deliver this. Each outcome should be timeless (usually not captured as a number or key metric). They are not tasks. For example:
- Deliver revenue goals for the business (for a BD role)
- Identify opportunities for improvement (for a process role)
- Build strong culture in the organisation (for a cultural leader)
Position: Position is often the title people have on their business card, email signature or job description. They are used primarily for communication outside the business. Each person in the business usually only has one position or title.
However each position may hold a number of roles - what we call a role stack. For example: Jane is a Business Development Lead - this is her title. She probably has a position description for executing this role. However, her role stack might also include:
- Leader - Business Development
- Business Development Specialist
- Tender Specialist
- Team Leader
- Nurture Lead
- Cultural Leader
Role: A role makes up one of the building block of a business - it defines a sets of accountabilities that need be executed with a set of core skills and attributes (less tangible behaviours compared to skills). Every role should be captured in a role card on the platform.
Team: A collection of roles required to work together to meet the purpose of that team.
Soul (individual): Have clarity about their work and their teams, including:
- What roles they hold in the organisation
- Which teams they contribute to - and in what role
- What expectations they will be held accountable for
- How they currently do that role
- Support to handover a role
- How they can improve or update the way they do their role using systems
System: The way something in the business gets done. A set of guidelines, processes and steps that capture your way of doing things in your business. As Michael Gerber said in E-Myth Revisited:
Organise around business functions, not people. Build systems within each business function. Let systems run the business and people run the systems. People come and go but the systems remain constant.
A system can be tagged to a role, a team and/or a key function.
The Adapt Lumia platform (video):
It gives a sense-making map of your organisation - how do things work around here? Systems which allow you to store documents, task maps, process diagrams, photos, videos, audio files - anything that helps you to capture what you do and who should be doing it.
Facilitation notes