Organisational Design

This chapter is an introduction to organisational design; more authoritative texts exist that expand on the subject in detail. In this chapter, organisational design is treated as part of the enterprise architecting process. Organisational units are abstract entities with their own identity (some also being legal entities), and consist of people, resources and a set of responsibilities and allocated authority. Organisational units are created for two reasons: to shield the complexity of human relations and responsibilities that inevitably arise within a company, and to be able to temporarily disassociate oneself from the identity of individuals who are part of the organisational unit. This gives the organisational unit a certain level of stability — e.g. it is possible to refer to a given role in an organisational unit, instead of referring to the particular person filling in that role at the time. Some organisational units are created to exist for a longer period of time, such as a department or a committee, while some may be created for shorter periods, such as task forces, ad-hoc committees, project teams, etc.