What Is Organization Design? Types, Principles & More

It has been cited that Apple's unusual organizational structure has enabled it to innovate over the years. Organization design is taught through the lens of organizational structure in most MBA programs. For decades, there has been a recurring debate over functional vs unit organizations. A company's organizational structure is one of the most legi... See more

It makes sense to him to look at organizational design from a more practical perspective by referring to it as 'searching for form-context fit.' You can make small changes to your team or observe how changes percolate throughout the entire company. You just have to watch, try things out, and then reflect on what happens if you want to learn how to ... See more

Organization & Team Structure

You are not given this information and it is not available anywhere. It is very important to understand the organizational structure of a company because it affects your ability to drive real impact.

• How is this team organized?


• Where does it sit in the broader picture of the company?


• Have there been significant change

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Seeing design as part of a living system applies equally to more subtle design tasks, like the “design” of guiding ideas. “Organization design is widely misconstrued as moving around boxes and lines,” Bill O’Brien used to say. “The first task of organizational design concerns designing the governing ideas—the purpose, vision, and core values by whi

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As a consultant focused on the org design of design orgs, I work across a variety of contexts—established businesses (banks, retail); software as a service (enterprise software); scale-ups (pre-IPO and growing); start-ups. And repeatedly over the past couple of years, I’ve found myself drawing some variation of the following generic digital product... See more

Whereas the fundamental principle of a conventional business unit structure is to align accountability and control, the fundamental principle of a functional organization is to align expertise and decision rights.

Your organization may not be ready for design, good or bad. Design-aware employees can organize brown-bag lunches and evangelize at the water cooler. Your organization will remain design-resistant unless its leaders think in a goal-directed way about its users (and customers). Consider reading some of the fundamental design books if you're a leader... See more