Lecture 1: Introduction
Two approaches:
Theory and practice
Diversity and theory
What is the relevance of Organisation Design?
Healthcare system -> analysing and solving underlying structural problems
- long waiting times
- aging population - > exploding costs
- prevalence of stress and burnout among staff
Police - > Less hierarchy and and bureaucracy at the police
- regional bodies to national police force
- initiative of centralized workers’ representation and towards staff taking
professional responsibilities
- organised working conference and online community to give police force a
voice
Media attention to new ways of working
- Managing without managers
What is Organisation design?
Products and user experience
Buildings and user experience
Systems and user experience
Organizations and work experience
Making choices about form, function and structure leading to the intended effect of
these choices.
Intended effect could be desired or undesired and technical or fundamental.
Managing as designing (Boland & Collopy, 2004); Core aspects of designing
- Multiple models of possible futures with continuous refinement
- Not a blank slate. Designer is dropped into conditions and has to work his way
out
- Collaboration. Nobody can know everything, unlike heroic tales
- Liquid crystal. choosing and iterations between leaving open and fixing
- legacy. Being conscious about one’s actions and the effects
,Tim Brown, IDEO; Design Thinking
- Empathy: What is the human need behind the business need
- Ideation: pushing past obvious solutions by using creative tools
- Experimentation: Making ideas tangible with using prototyping
- Iterative Approach: learning from mistakes
Designing should be a future-oriented activity
Responsible organising and Organisation Design
Societal impact of design: Organizations and society work like a two-way-street. Both
influence each other.
- Society has influence on the organisation of work and vice versa
- The conjuction of infrastructures and social practices have influence on
society and vice versa
- Organisational design was the motor of the industrial revolution
- Organisational design contributes to the improvement of employees’ quality of
work
Different perspectives on Organisational Design
The ‘Fit’ approach (Burton et al.)
- Organisational design consists of a couple components (i.e strategy, division
of work and people). According to them, these components should dealt with
coherently when implementing or changing them. They should also fit to the
environmental demand.
The Socio-technical approach (the dutch approach)
What design principles could increase the following three aspects?:
- Quality of organisation; the ability to effectively and efficiently realize and
adapt to organisation’s goals.
- Quality of work; meaningfulness of work and possibility to deal with stress
- Quality of work relations; effectives of communications within the organisation
Lean Management
- Originates from Toyota car factories and US research
- Used very often in modern times
How to limit the negative effects of batches and queues in (line) organisations
- limiting delays, costs, time, money, and overproduction
removing waste and facilitating flow; two different approaches
,Human-centered job design
Looks at the quality of work itself:
- Humans have the need to fulfill a meaningful part within a community
- They need clarity, variety, personal control and social contact
- The content of the job: What do people actually do?
Ethical/normative approach:
- Addresses well-being, mental and physical health of employees
- Address potential for growth and development among employees
Lecture 2: Introduction to Organisational Design
What is organisation design?
Organisation design addresses the general form of an organisation.
Different forms could be: Bureaucracy, Matrix Organisation, Cellular or a Network
Organisation.
Line structure: classical and nowadays still used in production and service industries.
Machine bureaucracy
Autonomous working group
Labour service platforms (part of gig economy): mediator between supply and
demand
Organisation design involves the challenge on how to partition a big task into smaller
tasks and how to coordinate these smaller tasks in a way they actually fit together to
realise organisational goals. (who does what, when)
How to design?
Burton et al.’s Fit approach. 9 interrelated components in 5 steps.
Why do we need a fit approach?
- Implementing or changing single aspects might not work or even have a
negative effect on other aspects.
- Organizations need to adapt to their environment since they are challenged
by external factors like globalisation, competition, deregulation and crises.
- According to Volberda et al. (2012), 30% of variation in organisational
performance can be attributed to aspects of organisational design.
, General perspective of Burton et al.
Contingency theory vs. one size fits all:
One size fits all (Taylor, Fayol, Weber, Ford) is the classical way
Contingency theory since the 50’s
- Organisations are open systems and they interact with the environment
- They depend on contingencies and need to respond to unexpected events
Pillar 1: multi-contingency model
9 interrelated components in 5 steps
1. Getting started - goals and scope
2. Assessing the strategy - strategy and environment
3. Analysing the structure - configuration
4. Analysing processes and people - task design and agents, leadership, and
climate
5. Analysing, coordination and control - coordination and control and incentives
-> All 5 aspects should fit with each other and to the environment (internal and
external fit)
Each component is discussed with two dimensions, but could this be too much?
Pillar 2: Information processing approach
Organisations process information to coordinate and control activities. By processing
information, an organisation sees what is happening, analyses problems and makes
choices on what to do.
Two elements:
1. How capable are organisations to process information? -> depends on the
design.
2. How much information do organisations need to process? Depends on task
uncertainty and interdependency complexity
Paradox:
The more uncertain the environment, the more information needs to be processed
within the organisation, but the quicker a response has to be.
Contingency model of burton et al. can be used to tailor the way organisations can
process information to environmental demands, by coming up with appropriate
design responses which should fit coherently with each other. This could also create
more information processing demands (increase interdependency complexity).
Two approaches:
Theory and practice
Diversity and theory
What is the relevance of Organisation Design?
Healthcare system -> analysing and solving underlying structural problems
- long waiting times
- aging population - > exploding costs
- prevalence of stress and burnout among staff
Police - > Less hierarchy and and bureaucracy at the police
- regional bodies to national police force
- initiative of centralized workers’ representation and towards staff taking
professional responsibilities
- organised working conference and online community to give police force a
voice
Media attention to new ways of working
- Managing without managers
What is Organisation design?
Products and user experience
Buildings and user experience
Systems and user experience
Organizations and work experience
Making choices about form, function and structure leading to the intended effect of
these choices.
Intended effect could be desired or undesired and technical or fundamental.
Managing as designing (Boland & Collopy, 2004); Core aspects of designing
- Multiple models of possible futures with continuous refinement
- Not a blank slate. Designer is dropped into conditions and has to work his way
out
- Collaboration. Nobody can know everything, unlike heroic tales
- Liquid crystal. choosing and iterations between leaving open and fixing
- legacy. Being conscious about one’s actions and the effects
,Tim Brown, IDEO; Design Thinking
- Empathy: What is the human need behind the business need
- Ideation: pushing past obvious solutions by using creative tools
- Experimentation: Making ideas tangible with using prototyping
- Iterative Approach: learning from mistakes
Designing should be a future-oriented activity
Responsible organising and Organisation Design
Societal impact of design: Organizations and society work like a two-way-street. Both
influence each other.
- Society has influence on the organisation of work and vice versa
- The conjuction of infrastructures and social practices have influence on
society and vice versa
- Organisational design was the motor of the industrial revolution
- Organisational design contributes to the improvement of employees’ quality of
work
Different perspectives on Organisational Design
The ‘Fit’ approach (Burton et al.)
- Organisational design consists of a couple components (i.e strategy, division
of work and people). According to them, these components should dealt with
coherently when implementing or changing them. They should also fit to the
environmental demand.
The Socio-technical approach (the dutch approach)
What design principles could increase the following three aspects?:
- Quality of organisation; the ability to effectively and efficiently realize and
adapt to organisation’s goals.
- Quality of work; meaningfulness of work and possibility to deal with stress
- Quality of work relations; effectives of communications within the organisation
Lean Management
- Originates from Toyota car factories and US research
- Used very often in modern times
How to limit the negative effects of batches and queues in (line) organisations
- limiting delays, costs, time, money, and overproduction
removing waste and facilitating flow; two different approaches
,Human-centered job design
Looks at the quality of work itself:
- Humans have the need to fulfill a meaningful part within a community
- They need clarity, variety, personal control and social contact
- The content of the job: What do people actually do?
Ethical/normative approach:
- Addresses well-being, mental and physical health of employees
- Address potential for growth and development among employees
Lecture 2: Introduction to Organisational Design
What is organisation design?
Organisation design addresses the general form of an organisation.
Different forms could be: Bureaucracy, Matrix Organisation, Cellular or a Network
Organisation.
Line structure: classical and nowadays still used in production and service industries.
Machine bureaucracy
Autonomous working group
Labour service platforms (part of gig economy): mediator between supply and
demand
Organisation design involves the challenge on how to partition a big task into smaller
tasks and how to coordinate these smaller tasks in a way they actually fit together to
realise organisational goals. (who does what, when)
How to design?
Burton et al.’s Fit approach. 9 interrelated components in 5 steps.
Why do we need a fit approach?
- Implementing or changing single aspects might not work or even have a
negative effect on other aspects.
- Organizations need to adapt to their environment since they are challenged
by external factors like globalisation, competition, deregulation and crises.
- According to Volberda et al. (2012), 30% of variation in organisational
performance can be attributed to aspects of organisational design.
, General perspective of Burton et al.
Contingency theory vs. one size fits all:
One size fits all (Taylor, Fayol, Weber, Ford) is the classical way
Contingency theory since the 50’s
- Organisations are open systems and they interact with the environment
- They depend on contingencies and need to respond to unexpected events
Pillar 1: multi-contingency model
9 interrelated components in 5 steps
1. Getting started - goals and scope
2. Assessing the strategy - strategy and environment
3. Analysing the structure - configuration
4. Analysing processes and people - task design and agents, leadership, and
climate
5. Analysing, coordination and control - coordination and control and incentives
-> All 5 aspects should fit with each other and to the environment (internal and
external fit)
Each component is discussed with two dimensions, but could this be too much?
Pillar 2: Information processing approach
Organisations process information to coordinate and control activities. By processing
information, an organisation sees what is happening, analyses problems and makes
choices on what to do.
Two elements:
1. How capable are organisations to process information? -> depends on the
design.
2. How much information do organisations need to process? Depends on task
uncertainty and interdependency complexity
Paradox:
The more uncertain the environment, the more information needs to be processed
within the organisation, but the quicker a response has to be.
Contingency model of burton et al. can be used to tailor the way organisations can
process information to environmental demands, by coming up with appropriate
design responses which should fit coherently with each other. This could also create
more information processing demands (increase interdependency complexity).
