56: Structuring Teams in Organizations

I’ve been in various reorgs. Sometimes, it made sense to do a re-organization to align the organization with the evolving business better. However, one of the realizations for me is that org charts are difficult to get. They serve to identify who reports to whom but other than that, they are inefficient. When companies focus on org-charts instead of work streams and communication lines, they face major problems because they fail to identify teams’ accountability. Organization charts don’t reflect teams’ accountability. People learn team responsibilities in time. Having reorgs prevents people from getting to know each other; thus, making the organization inefficient for a while. Especially, if the reorgs are frequent and depend on the org chart, then catastrophe awaits. People won’t have time to learn the new organization before getting another reorg.

• Related Note(s):
  • 34: Clarity in Organizations;
  • 36: Open Feedback Culture;
  • 43: The Role and Responsibility of Software Architect;
  • 42b: Systems and Design Thinking;
• Source(s): Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais;