Introduction to Organization Design
Lecture one: Introduction
What is design:
- Design: good products, what is the user experience
- Also bigger things: design spaces with thoughts of how it will make you/people feel
- Designing: making choices about function, form and structure
- Intended effect but also unwanted/desired and unknown/known effects
- Values: determine what the desired is
- When you want interaction, think about the organization of a design
Managing as designing:
Core aspects: multiple models of possible futures with continuous refinement
- Thrownsess: not a blank state, a designer is dropped into conditions and has to work his way out
- Collaboration: no-one can know everything, against the heroic tale
- Liquid (things are fluid) crystals (things have a certain form): iterations between leaving open and
fixing (OD has to have both aspects)
- Legacy: being conscious of the effects of one’s actions, what you are leaving
Design thinking: applying the way designers think to organizational problems
- We can all benefit from applying the way designers think
- Empathy: what’s the human need behind the business need
- Ideation: using creative tools to generate many possible ideas, push past obvious solutions
- Experimentation: testing ideas with prototyping, making ideas tangible
- Iterative approach: learning from mistakes, doing things over and over
Organization design as part of responsible organizing:
- Societal impact of design
Four approaches to OD: each approach has a different view on what is the best value
1. Fit approach: different categories fit together, int. fit (elements and environmental conditions, ext. fit)
- Burton: OD consists of a number of components that should be considered in a coherent way
- OD involves categories of interrelated aspects
- Aspects should also fit environmental demands
- Critique: often aspects of OD are implemented/changed independently of each other
2. Sociotechnical systems design: aims to achieve three main goals at a time
- Quality of organization: ability of an organization to efficiently and effectively realize and
adapt its goals
- Quality of work: meaningfulness of work and possibility to deal with stress
- Quality of work and relations: effectiveness of communications in organizations
- Difference with fit approach: internal complexity is a bad idea
3. Lean management: how can organizations limit the negative effects of batches and queues in (line)
organizations
- Batches and queues: produce one product than another etc…
- Delays cost time and money, overproduction
- Different approaches to lean:
- Those only oriented on removing waste
1
, - Those aimed at facilitating “flow
4. Human-centered job design: good at looking at the individual level (what do people do)
- Quality of work as a goal in itself:
- Humans have a need to fulfill a meaningful part within a community
- A paid job is one form of income but also fulfills other functions
- They need clarity, variety, personal control, social contact
- Ethical/ normative approach that proposes:
- Human well-being, mental and physical health
- Potential for growth and development
- Content of job: what do people actually do?
- Conditions for performing the job
The multi-contingency model
1. Goals and scope: efficiency and effectivity
2. Strategy: reactor, defender, prospector, analyzer
3. Structure:
4. Coordination and control:
5. Processes and people:
2
, Lecture two: Introduction to Burton et al.
Organization design, what it is:
- OD is often based on older theoretical work
- According to Burton, Matrix organizations are the solution to solving problems
- Challenges to organizations
- Need for adaptation of organization to environmental demands
- 30% of the variation in organizational performance can be related to aspects of OD
OD is the challenge of how to:
1. Partition a big tasks into smaller tasks
2. Coordinate these smaller tasks in such a way that they fit together in an efficient way to realize the
organization’s goals
- Doing this should tap into five aspects depicted in their model (Burton et. al, universal
definition)
Organizational design consists of a number of components that should be considered in a coherent way:
- Critique: often aspects of organizational design are implemented/changed independently of each other
- OD is an integral approach, not a partial approach: different subjects need to be coherent to not
have misfits
Functional OD: every person has an own tasks which need to be defined
Network organization: leans on an internet platform, individuals that chase jobs themselves (uber)
Need for information processing within the organization can be facilitated by design and varies depending on
environmental challenges
OD and fit:
All five aspects of OD should fit with each other and with contingencies of the environment:
1. Choices of the inside of the five categories should relate to characteristics of the environment
- Stable environments have a different design than turbulent environments
- Stable environment: not many customers, demands do not change
- Turbulent environment: everything changes constantly
2. Choices in one aspect of the model have consequences for the other aspects
- All aspects have to change (when done correctly there is a good fit)
Fit and organizational practice:
- Adaptation of organizations to the environment often only addresses at the individual level
- Strategy changes not translated to other implications
- Result: individual employees burdened with the increasing demands of new strategy and old
organization
Information processing approach: (100% chance of question on exam)
- Second assumption: the five aspects of an organizational design influence information processing
within the organization
- General idea: organizations should balance between information processing demands and abilities
- These two should be matched
3
Lecture one: Introduction
What is design:
- Design: good products, what is the user experience
- Also bigger things: design spaces with thoughts of how it will make you/people feel
- Designing: making choices about function, form and structure
- Intended effect but also unwanted/desired and unknown/known effects
- Values: determine what the desired is
- When you want interaction, think about the organization of a design
Managing as designing:
Core aspects: multiple models of possible futures with continuous refinement
- Thrownsess: not a blank state, a designer is dropped into conditions and has to work his way out
- Collaboration: no-one can know everything, against the heroic tale
- Liquid (things are fluid) crystals (things have a certain form): iterations between leaving open and
fixing (OD has to have both aspects)
- Legacy: being conscious of the effects of one’s actions, what you are leaving
Design thinking: applying the way designers think to organizational problems
- We can all benefit from applying the way designers think
- Empathy: what’s the human need behind the business need
- Ideation: using creative tools to generate many possible ideas, push past obvious solutions
- Experimentation: testing ideas with prototyping, making ideas tangible
- Iterative approach: learning from mistakes, doing things over and over
Organization design as part of responsible organizing:
- Societal impact of design
Four approaches to OD: each approach has a different view on what is the best value
1. Fit approach: different categories fit together, int. fit (elements and environmental conditions, ext. fit)
- Burton: OD consists of a number of components that should be considered in a coherent way
- OD involves categories of interrelated aspects
- Aspects should also fit environmental demands
- Critique: often aspects of OD are implemented/changed independently of each other
2. Sociotechnical systems design: aims to achieve three main goals at a time
- Quality of organization: ability of an organization to efficiently and effectively realize and
adapt its goals
- Quality of work: meaningfulness of work and possibility to deal with stress
- Quality of work and relations: effectiveness of communications in organizations
- Difference with fit approach: internal complexity is a bad idea
3. Lean management: how can organizations limit the negative effects of batches and queues in (line)
organizations
- Batches and queues: produce one product than another etc…
- Delays cost time and money, overproduction
- Different approaches to lean:
- Those only oriented on removing waste
1
, - Those aimed at facilitating “flow
4. Human-centered job design: good at looking at the individual level (what do people do)
- Quality of work as a goal in itself:
- Humans have a need to fulfill a meaningful part within a community
- A paid job is one form of income but also fulfills other functions
- They need clarity, variety, personal control, social contact
- Ethical/ normative approach that proposes:
- Human well-being, mental and physical health
- Potential for growth and development
- Content of job: what do people actually do?
- Conditions for performing the job
The multi-contingency model
1. Goals and scope: efficiency and effectivity
2. Strategy: reactor, defender, prospector, analyzer
3. Structure:
4. Coordination and control:
5. Processes and people:
2
, Lecture two: Introduction to Burton et al.
Organization design, what it is:
- OD is often based on older theoretical work
- According to Burton, Matrix organizations are the solution to solving problems
- Challenges to organizations
- Need for adaptation of organization to environmental demands
- 30% of the variation in organizational performance can be related to aspects of OD
OD is the challenge of how to:
1. Partition a big tasks into smaller tasks
2. Coordinate these smaller tasks in such a way that they fit together in an efficient way to realize the
organization’s goals
- Doing this should tap into five aspects depicted in their model (Burton et. al, universal
definition)
Organizational design consists of a number of components that should be considered in a coherent way:
- Critique: often aspects of organizational design are implemented/changed independently of each other
- OD is an integral approach, not a partial approach: different subjects need to be coherent to not
have misfits
Functional OD: every person has an own tasks which need to be defined
Network organization: leans on an internet platform, individuals that chase jobs themselves (uber)
Need for information processing within the organization can be facilitated by design and varies depending on
environmental challenges
OD and fit:
All five aspects of OD should fit with each other and with contingencies of the environment:
1. Choices of the inside of the five categories should relate to characteristics of the environment
- Stable environments have a different design than turbulent environments
- Stable environment: not many customers, demands do not change
- Turbulent environment: everything changes constantly
2. Choices in one aspect of the model have consequences for the other aspects
- All aspects have to change (when done correctly there is a good fit)
Fit and organizational practice:
- Adaptation of organizations to the environment often only addresses at the individual level
- Strategy changes not translated to other implications
- Result: individual employees burdened with the increasing demands of new strategy and old
organization
Information processing approach: (100% chance of question on exam)
- Second assumption: the five aspects of an organizational design influence information processing
within the organization
- General idea: organizations should balance between information processing demands and abilities
- These two should be matched
3
