Introduction
Key findings
Part 1: Scoping the engagement and preparing the project
Results
Part/design phase | No. | Item | Average | Std. Dev. | Often or always a challenge: |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scoping the engagement and preparing the project | 1 | Creating realistic estimates regarding the time and resources required to complete the project | 3.6 | 1.0 | 58% |
2 | Ensuring that the project team is composed of people with relevant and complementary skills and experience | 3.1 | 1.1 | 39% | |
3 | Finding relevant cases from other comparable organizations that we could learn from | 3.5 | 1.2 | 54% | |
4 | Creating a common understanding with the client /decision maker regarding the project mandate | 3.0 | 1.1 | 33% | |
5 | Identifying who the real stakeholders for the project are | 2.7 | 1.1 | 24 % | |
Analyzing the current organization | 6 | Understanding the implications of the organization’s strategy for the organization | 2.9 | 1.1 | 33% |
7 | Identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the current organization | 2.5 | 1.0 | 18% | |
8 | Identifying the mandates or goals pursued by the different sub-units in the organization | 3.0 | 1.1 | 37% | |
9 | Understanding the formal governance processes and reporting relationships in the current organization | 2.7 | 1.0 | 21% | |
10 | Understanding how people collaborate and/or exchange information across units in the current organization | 3.4 | 1.0 | 55% | |
11 | Documenting how the organization utilizes its resources (e.g., in different units, work processes, locations) | 3.3 | 1.0 | 47% | |
Developing the new design | 12 | Gaining consensus among stakeholders for a set of design criteria (or priorities/principles for the new model) | 3.2 | 1.2 | 42% |
13 | Ensuring that the client or decision maker does not make a premature commitment to a preferred model before exploring alternative options | 3.5 | 1.1 | 59% | |
14 | Identifying the consequences of the tentative or proposed organizational models (e.g., consequences with regards to coordination, resource utilization, costs, productivity, employee morale) | 3.3 | 1.1 | 47% | |
15 | Ensuring that the client and key stakeholders feel a sense of ownership toward the selected model | 3.1 | 1.1 | 39% | |
16 | Ensuring that managers and employees (people outside the design team) understand the rationale behind the decision alternatives (i.e., organizational models) | 3.5 | 1.0 | 55% | |
17 | Incorporating suggestions and concerns from stakeholders when revising the tentative/proposed model(s) | 2.7 | 1.0 | 23% | |
18 | Helping participants in the process see the larger picture, as opposed to “protecting their own turf” | 3.7 | 1.1 | 62% | |
19 | Ensuring that the decision maker(s) reach a decision regarding the preferred new organizational model | 3.2 | 1.1 | 42% | |
20 | Ensuring that the organizational model that is selected meets the design criteria (or priorities/principles) established earlier in the process | 2.8 | 1.1 | 27% | |
Implementing the new organizational model | 21 | Operationalizing the selected organizational model (e.g., identifying new roles, defining sub-units and interfaces, formulating key performance indicators (KPIs), etc.) | 3.3 | 1.1 | 49% |
22 | Staffing the new organization (i.e., allocating people to new roles, or having people apply for available roles) | 3.2 | 1.0 | 41% | |
23 | Adapting the infrastructure (e.g., IT systems, buildings, offices) to the new organizational model | 3.5 | 1.1 | 52% | |
24 | Conducting other interventions aimed at achieving changes in knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors to support the new organizational model | 3.5 | 1.0 | 55% | |
25 | Evaluating whether the new organizational model achieves the intended effect | 3.8 | 1.0 | 65% |
Interpretation
[…] most projects are never just organization design. They touch at the heart of strategy, at the intersection of process, technology and people and quickly elevate the urgency / sensitivity to changes and bring to light personal wins and losses.
Most clients want it done fast and do not recognize how much time it will take to solicit input from organizational members. They (...) downplay the importance of broader participation
This contracting step is of course dependent on the quality and accuracy of the knowledge in the system
Part 2: Analyzing the current organization
Results
Interpretation
Lack of as-is data is always a major challenge resulting in an expensive analysis and documentation phase which clients don’t want to spend money on
An absence of process maps/definitions is often a challenge - there is no record of what people actually do, sometimes not even job descriptions
My answer regarding the utilization of resources is rooted in the difficulty in gathering accurate data to perform this task, especially in a large, global organization
These challenges are present due to the unwillingness of the institutions I work with to truly acknowledge or disclose the truths.
Part 3: Developing the new design
Results
Interpretation
It is at this stage that territorial protection and internal politics start to come into play. People tend to think in terms of losses rather than gains
The biggest issue is a misunderstanding of what design criteria are and what good criteria look like. Clients are often too wedded to “what is” rather than “what could/should be”
Often times leaders do not want to give the time to exploring conceptual options…they want to get on with it, there are budget pressures to get it done
Identification of design criteria seems simple to stakeholders because they don’t have a concept of the new organization and associated trade-offs yet. When design options are presented, stakeholders begin to understand implications of criteria. Typically, they will attempt to redo criteria in order to meet an expected design outcome. Practitioners require courage and candor to help stakeholders understand how tweaks in the design will compromise the original design criteria (intent)
Part 4: Implementing the new organizational model
Results
Interpretation
Often clients have spent all the money on design and never budget for implementation and even less so for embedding, and so often the benefits of the design are not realized. Organizations seem to run out of steam. They don’t realize how important it is to have someone drive the implementation in such a manner as to take it from a paper exercise to workable reality
Clients are keen to design with us, but less enthusiastic about partnering in implementation because ‘that’s what HR does’. This usually results in […] disregard for the elements that make an organization [re-design] successful - KPIs, performance management, culture and behavior change
Evaluating the model’s impact down the road is usually left in the hands of the [client] organization
Determining whether or not the design has been successful can be difficult (especially in quantitative terms). The implementation work, if done correctly, takes a lot of time […]
Usually, once “implemented,” the energy goes down for evaluating. It’s “back to the grind,” and the grind is harder now because of the learning curve. Only painful problems tend to gain enough energy to bring corrective adaptations, so positive opportunities are harder to capture
In regards to measuring if the new model achieves its intended effect, most of this work is financially driven. There seems to be little appetite to look at “softer” people measures, such as employee engagement, turnover, sick days, etc.