Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure
Structure follows strategy: Design your IT organization for the future
- An organizational redesign represents a critical opportunity to ensure IT is aligned with the strategic direction of the organization.
- A large variety of approaches and competing priorities make the task of implementing the best-fit organizational design highly complex and difficult to navigate.
- External competitive influences and leading technological trends further complicate finding the right approach.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Structure is not just your organization chart. Your structure will dictate how roles function and how people work together to create value. It is the key enabler of your strategic direction.
- Balance adaptability and stability. You need to be able to adapt to change, but have a strategic baseline to assess whether that change fits the bigger picture.
- Change in practice, not just on paper. Redesign requires constant caring and feeding to see through to the finish line. You role as a champion of change is critical to success.
Impact and Result
- Define a set of organizational design principles that will act as a manifesto for change, providing a critical checklist so that structure does not devolve from the organization’s strategy.
- Visualize IT’s structure with a customized operating model, clearly demonstrating how IT creates value and how work flows in and out of the department.
- Define future-state work units, roles, and responsibilities that will enable the IT organization to complete the work that needs to be done.
Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read this Executive Brief to understand the challenges associated with organizational redesign and how Info-Tech's methodology can help you navigate your way forward.
1. Craft organizational design principles and select an IT operating model
Start with crafting a set of organizational design principles that will govern your organizational restructuring through key strategy-aligned criteria.
2. Customize the IT operating model
Customize your operating model to fit the nuances of your organization's strategy and influencing factors.
3. Architect the target-state IT organizational structure
Turn your IT operating model into an organizational structure for the future.
4. Communicate the benefits of the new organizational structure
With your new organizational structure in hand, craft a communications plan to address key concerns and retain buy-in from all relevant parties.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.1/10
Overall Impact
$83,395
Average $ Saved
21
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
City of Savannah
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
5
Lactalis American Group, Inc
Workshop
9/10
$60,319
20
Peoples Trust
Guided Implementation
10/10
$95,000
47
First Merchants Corporation
Workshop
9/10
$122K
90
Employment Development Department
Workshop
9/10
N/A
N/A
AgVantis Inc
Guided Implementation
10/10
$27,270
9
Town Of Milton
Workshop
8/10
$3,000
5
Western University of Health Sciences
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
Lee County Tax Collector
Workshop
3/10
N/A
2
Bauer Hockey LLC
Workshop
9/10
$61,979
10
City of Lakeland
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
50
Horizon Power
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
20
Halifax Port Authority
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
N/A
MTA Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Guided Implementation
10/10
$57,303
10
Segal
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
5
GLY Construction, Inc.
Guided Implementation
8/10
$2,355
2
Debswana
Guided Implementation
9/10
$30,989
9
HighTower
Workshop
9/10
$603K
10
Royal Canadian Mint
Guided Implementation
10/10
$50,000
20
Samaritan Ministries International
Guided Implementation
10/10
$61,979
20
Segal
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
10
Dark Fibre Africa
Guided Implementation
10/10
$117K
50
Donor Network West
Guided Implementation
10/10
$123K
20
Choctaw Nation Of Oklahoma
Workshop
10/10
$117K
50
Husco International Incorporated
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,355
10
Manning & Napier Advisors, LLC
Workshop
9/10
N/A
50
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,063
5
Werner Co.
Guided Implementation
6/10
$2,479
1
Segal
Workshop
9/10
$123K
20
North Carolina Department of Information Technology
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
4
IT Organizational Design
Improve performance through a fit-for-purpose organizational design.
This course makes up part of the People & Resources Certificate.
- Course Modules: 5
- Estimated Completion Time: 2-2.5 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Carlene McCubbin, Sr. Research Manager, CIO Practice
- James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice
Onsite Workshop: Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Decide on Design Principles
The Purpose
- Craft a set of design principles that are aligned with the organization’s strategic direction and external/internal influencers.
Key Benefits Achieved
- A set of governing criteria for future organizational structure changes.
Activities
Outputs
Brainstorm the implications of your IT strategy on your organizational structure.
- List of points and opportunities for new organizational structure
Use your collected data to conduct an analysis of current pain points and opportunities.
- Review of Info-Tech diagnostic data
Create your finalized list of design principles.
- List of custom-fit organizational design principles
Module 2: Select Operating Model and Organizational Structure
The Purpose
- Select an operating model, customize it to meet the nuances of the organization, and land on a baseline organizational sketch.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Create a custom-fit visualization of the way IT creates value.
- Define IT’s core capabilities and where they lie within the organization.
- Land on a baseline organizational sketch to be customized later.
Activities
Outputs
Finalize your operating model selection.
Customize the IT operating model.
- Customized IT operating model
Decide on a baseline organizational structure.
- Heat mapped (for gap analysis) IT operating model
Module 3: Customize Organizational Structure
The Purpose
- Customize the new organizational structure to meet the future-state needs of the organization.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Newly defined work units.
- Categorized IT capabilities by work unit.
- Clear accountabilities and responsibilities for core IT capabilities.
Activities
Outputs
Customize baseline work units to fit your organization’s future state.
- Defined future-state work unit structure
Categorize your IT capabilities within your defined work units.
- Categorized IT capabilities by work unit
Delineate accountabilities and responsibilities for your IT capabilities.
- Capability-based RACI chart
Module 4: Define Roles and Finalize Work Units
The Purpose
- Finalize the organizational structure by defining future-state roles and work unit mandates.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Finalized future-state organizational
structure.
Activities
Outputs
Define the roles inside your work units.
- Future-state role design
Create a mandate statement for each work unit.
- Work unit mandates
Finalize your organizational structure.
- Finalized organizational structure
Module 5: Build Your Communication Plan
The Purpose
- Create a communications plan to spread the word of the new organizational structure and retain buy-in from key stakeholders.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Finalized communications deliverable.
- Organizational redesign FAQ.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct a stakeholder analysis to identify the impact and level of resistance from all stakeholders.
- Stakeholder map
Create a communications plan tailored to the interests of each of your respective stakeholders.
- Communications plan
Create an FAQ to address common questions and concerns around your restructuring.
- Organizational restructuring FAQ
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 7 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Build design principles and operating model
- Call #1 - Craft a set of organizational design principles
- Call #2 - Select a baseline operating model
Guided Implementation #2 - Customize the operating model
- Call #1 - Determine target-state sourcing and centralization
- Call #2 - Customize and heat map the IT operating model
Guided Implementation #3 - Define roles and work units
- Call #1 - Define target-state work units
- Call #2 - Define roles and responsibilities within new work units
Guided Implementation #4 - Communicate to stakeholders
- Call #1 - Plan stakeholder communication
Contributors
- Dan Humbert, IT Director, YMCA of Central Florida
- John Arnold, CTO, Paysafe Group
- Alan Fralick, CIO, Oldcastle Materials, Inc.
- Nurith Rochon, CEO, Advanced Knowledge Innovations Inc.
- 2 anonymous contributors