Reorganization

A change to an organization’s structure or coordination arrangements intended to support different work or resolve a specific difficulty. Its value depends on how responsibilities, decisions, and handoffs function afterward.

Reorganization changes responsibilities, reporting relationships, group boundaries, or coordination arrangements. It can help when the current structure interferes with the work an organization needs to do. It can also disrupt useful relationships or leave the underlying problem untouched if incentives, information, resources, and decisions continue to work as before.

Start with the function that should improve and explain how a particular structural change would affect it. Compare smaller changes and the transition costs, without assuming that every alternative must be exhausted before structure can change. A new chart is a proposal about how work will happen. Evaluate the actual handoffs and decisions that follow, including burdens shifted to other parts of the organization.

When to use it

When the current organization impedes needed work, strategy changes, or a recurring coordination problem may have a structural contributor.

How it can help

Helps evaluate a structural change as a causal proposal with transition costs, complementary requirements, and observable outcomes.