We therefore develop several concrete design options, test them against typical work and decision situations and involve those who will later be affected. Once the decision is made, roles, expectations and communication routines are tested in everyday work. Feedback shows which adjustments are needed. The design thus remains a deliberately shaped precondition for collaboration, which leadership and the organisation must carry forward.
Arbeitsergebnisse: Begründete Gestaltungsanforderungen; Geklärte Rollen, Schnittstellen und Entscheidungswege; Vorgehen für Einführung und Weiterentwicklung.
There is no one-size-fits-all organisational model. Scope and design depend on your strategy, the task and the conditions in your organisation.
Organisations are not machines whose behaviour is fully predetermined by a plan. They consist of ongoing communication and decisions. Design therefore works through decision premises: What task does a unit have, which other unit is it connected to and according to which rules are questions passed on? Strategic positioning and organisational structure must not be designed separately.
If a company wants to offer more individual customer solutions, for example, it must check whether decisions on sales, the specialist department and service come together in time. The example is a test question, not a client case.
In workshops with key players, several design options can be played through using typical situations. Where would a conflict end up? Who could make a binding decision? What information would be available for this decision? An option that looks simple on paper can create additional handovers in everyday work. That is why new roles and routines are observed and adjusted after the decision. The aim is an organisation that can handle the strategic task better and whose members understand the new expectations. An organisation chart records the result; the change shows in decisions.
A design workshop should therefore work on real decision situations. Participants follow a question from the first indication to the binding choice: Who recognises it, who has the necessary information, which function is involved and who bears the consequences? This trail reveals additional loops and unresolved boundaries between units. An option is only preferred once it makes the strategic task easier to handle under actual conditions. After implementation, the same decision trail can be examined again to assess the effect of the new design.
The internal linking of units is also part of the design. Clear responsibility without suitable exchange can create a new boundary at which decisions stall again.
Organisational design links structural questions to the strategic task. A new organisational structure only makes sense if it is clear which work is to be done and decided differently in future. Together with leadership and the units affected, we therefore examine which interfaces are decisive for customer value, where responsibility remains unclear and what information a decision requires. A draft describes roles and relationships between units; testing shows whether the intended paths actually work.
Participants can check whether the new arrangement makes collaboration easier or merely creates different boundaries. The result therefore comprises more than an organisation chart. It includes clarified decision-making scope, communication routines and an approach for dealing with open contradictions during implementation. A later review shows which assumptions of the draft hold up in actual collaboration.
