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Redesign Your IT Organizational Structure
Reorganizations are difficult to get right. Take a strategic approach that provides operational stability in the now and flexibility for the future.
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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
Your Challenge
- 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.
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.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a seven call advisory process.
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
Info-Tech Academy
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New to Info-Tech Academy? Learn more here
IT Organizational Design Course
Improve performance through a fit-for-purpose organizational design.
This course makes up part of the People & Resources Certificate.
Course information:
- Title: IT Organizational Design Course
- Number of Course Modules: 5
- Estimated Time to Complete: 2-2.5 hours
- Featured Analysts:
- Carlene McCubbin, Sr. Research Manager, CIO Practice
- James Alexander, SVP of Research and Advisory, CIO Practice
- Now Playing: Academy: IT Organizational Design | Executive Brief
Book Your Workshop
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
