A recent opinion article in Computerworld ponders the role of org charts and what they reveal about an organization. They are useful in detailing who reports to whom and which department pays the salary. But the very act of viewing an organization through this type of chart perpetuates an outdated way of thinking, with a silo’d, hierarchical structure that often fails at meeting client/customer expectations or responding quickly to changing conditions. So what to do? Some massive reorganization?
Maybe place to start is to simply choose to model the workplace is some alternate way, without actually changing anything. The tools we choose to represent the physical world, in this case an ordered, hierarchical diagram of employees, directly influences peoples actions. We need to ask the right questions — maybe not “who reports to whom” but “who works with whom”, two similar questions but will often yield wildly different results. How about a knowledge or skills map of the organization? For the knowledge worker this might prove more useful than the standard org chart. Hierarchy might be organized along depth of knowledge. I’m not really sure how this would work, bu wouldn’t it be a useful workplace exercise and offer fresh perspectives on the organization?
Data on relationships could be gleaned from email records — the outlook plug-in Xobni does this at the client level. Privacy concerns might come into play when analyzing enterprise-wide, but it would be really interesting to look at email from a 6 month period and see what that relationship map looks like as compared to the org chart. Add meeting records (who proposes, who is invited, who attends) too. Social networking tools offer similar opportunities, looking at following, commenting and posting behavior to map relationship maps. The advantage here is you can monitor what people actually do.
Do org charts still matter? | Adventures in IT – InfoWorld
The fact that similar organizational charts can lead to fundamentally different business outcomes prompts one to ask whether org charts still matter. Do they convey the information we need?
Org Chart 2.0: Built for User Experience Systems | Matter/Anti-Matter – CNET News
Today’s companies are largely structured with Org Chart 1.0: silos of knowledge and product offerings (segmented by customer type, price point, technology, etc.). We have had this structure for decades, even centuries…Unfortunately this type of organizational structure is quite poor at dealing with complex systems and systemic-level problems. And this is becoming increasingly untenable
RodeWorks » Blog Archive » Mind Mapping and other visual thinking
A couple of years ago, after attending an Edward Tufte workshop I tried out a different visual take on the standard organization chart.
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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