Organizational design workshop (Internal only)

Understand how your current organization really actually works, and there is no way back. Then decide where you want to be.

In this workshop, we recognize and model the fundamental patterns that operate in your organization, and design experiments to fuel the good ones and dampen the bad ones.

When the key patterns become part of the everyday language, the knowledge will be present in every decision-making situation, and there is no way back.

We will use proven models to analyze the organization and communicate the findings with the key players in the organization. We will learn different analysis techniques to crystallize thinking, for example, applied Value Stream Mapping, Causal Loop Diagram, Stakeholder map, social network analysis, and analyzing the organizational culture.

The analysis also gives a firm base to decide what kind of Agile, Lean, or other techniques you want to apply.

Agenda

  • Warmup
  • Collecting and prioritizing interests
  • Brief the analysis technique and start to work in small groups. Share and discuss the analysis. Trainers present relevant examples of patterns from other organizations. The workshop will adapt to what comes up in the analysis. Repeat.
  • As a side effect, we may occasionally reflect and learn from the group dynamics of the training group.
  • Conclude and agree next steps

The templates, cases and examples are from research, textbooks, and our experience in different organizations. They span all perspectives that are relevant for performance: business, social, process, technology, coordination, decision making. We will study the ones that are most useful for you:

  • Coordination Chaos
  • Bureaucracy
  • Queueing theory
  • Network of experts
  • Dreaming-thinking-doing-using
  • Explosion of detail
  • Alien subcultures of business and development
  • Organize for teamwork
  • Component-versus-feature teams
  • Planning implementation and ticket universes
  • Thinking by tickets
  • Acceptance test driven design, development and project management
  • Promote the successful whippers
  • Learning is difficult
  • Transformation by coaching community
  • And many more based on the findings in the workshop

The workshop works best as a part of a larger training and/or organizational improvement program.

Practicalities

  • The trainers make a brief assessment to understand the organization
  • A compelling assignment and invitation is prepared by the sponsors and trainers together
  • Invite a cross-role, cross-organization group of participants with real experience of the work
  • Recommended duration for one workshop is 1/2 - 1 days. The impact correlates with the time investment.
  • A series of workshops with varying participants provides a drill-down process, where the next workshop benefits from the findings of the previous ones.
  • A default number of participants is less than 15, allowing diversity, flexibility, and air time for each participant. Larger workshops may be conducted for special purposes.

Please inquire by email from