Organizing Rationale
How you group work is a choice, and every choice buys something and costs something. This tool makes that trade explicit before you commit to it.
Aim
The Organizing Rationale is the logic or basis for grouping work within the organizational boundaries. Discussing organizing rationales helps groups explore multiple possibilities and examine their benefits and risks.
Results
Once you've completed your Organizing Rationale you'll have a bar diagram you can use to analyse structure outcomes. It will also help you to develop unbiased logic for how to deliver your strategy or purpose, and to suspend focus on titles and people.
Pro Tips
- Consider organizing in unique ways that create unique value. Traditional concepts like geography, product, customer or function might not drive enough differentiation.
- Nothing is perfect. Every possibility will have benefits and risks. Risks can be mitigated in the next layer with formal linking mechanisms.
- The most important aspect of any Organizing Rationale is execution. The right structure poorly executed brings little result and frequent reorganizations.
What does good look like?
- A visible representation of the first few layers of the organization is captured, with the rationale for each layer clearly defined.
- Benefits and risks for each rationale are defined, and risks are mitigated where appropriate at the next levels.
- You begin to see the organizing structure in the model without the number of each role.