“Growing a culture requires a good storyteller. Changing a culture requires a persuasive editor.” — Ryan Lilly
How do you design an effective organization?
How do you equip your group to achieve its goals? What are the key components of an organization that will help you be successful.
In The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Michael Watkins writes about how to design an effective organizational architecture and help you avoid dysfunctional arrangements.
5 Elements of Organizational Architecture
Watkins identifies the five elements of organizational architecture:
- Strategy: the core approach the organization will use to accomplish its goals.
- Structure: How people are situated in units and how their work is coordinated.
- Systems: The process used to add value.
- Skills: The capabilities of the various groups of people in the organization.
- Culture: The values, norms and assumptions that shape behavior.
Identifying Misalignments
Watkins identifies three common misalignments:
- Skills and strategy misalignments.
- Systems and strategy misalignments.
- Structure and systems misalignments.
Avoiding Some Common Traps
Watkins identifies some common traps you should avoid:
- Trying to restructure your way out of deeper problems.
- Creating structures that are too complex.
- Automating problem processes.
- Making changes for change’s sake.
- Overestimating your group’s capacity to absorb strategic shifts.
Getting Started
Watkins provides a proven roadmap for getting started:
- Start with strategy.
- Look at supporting structure, systems, and skills.
- Decide how and when you will introduce the new strategy.
- Re-shape structure, systems, and skills simultaneously.
- Close the loop.
Key Take Aways
Here are my key take aways:
- Build a durable, evolvable frame for the organization.
- Nail the five elements of organizational architecture: strategy, structure, systems, skills, and culture.
- Identify misalignments.
- Know the common traps.
- Use the roadmap to get started and as a baseline for an effective organizational architecture.
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FAQs
The enterprise architecture model comprises five architectural components: Organizational Architecture, Business Architecture, Information Architecture, Application Architecture, and Technological Architecture.
What are the five elements of architecture? ›
Key Terms: Elements of Architecture
- Scale & Proportion. Scale refers to a building's size in relation to its surroundings and other objects, including the human body. ...
- Balance. One way to consider balance in architecture is to examine a building's symmetry. ...
- Light. ...
- Color. ...
- Line. ...
- Texture. ...
- Ornament. ...
- Rhythm.
Nail the five elements of organizational architecture: strategy, structure, systems, skills, and culture.
What are the 5 organizational approaches? ›
Five common approaches — functional, divisional, matrix, team, and networking—help managers determine departmental groupings (grouping of positions into departments). The five structures are basic organizational structures, which are then adapted to an organization's needs.
What are the 5 main points of architecture? ›
Urbanism and Architectural Theory
The design principles include the following five points by Le Corbusier: Pilotis (pillars), roof garden, open floor plan, long windows and open facades.
What are the 5 W's of architecture? ›
Rules that I have followed and that I have impressed upon my artists within our studio can be summarized by the 5 W's. The Who, What, When, Where, and Why are so important in every project we work on.
What are the 5 domains of architecture? ›
enterprise architecture model comprises five architectural components: Organizational Ar- chitecture, Business Architecture, Information Architecture, Application Architecture, and Tech- nological Architecture.
What are the 5 phases of architecture? ›
There are 5 design phases to architectural services. They are (in order) Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding, and Construction Administration.
What are the five fundamentals of architecture? ›
Architecture Design Principles
- Principle of Balance.
- Principle of Emphasis.
- Principle of Proportion & Scale.
- Principle of Movement.
- Principle of Rhythm.
Introduction An organisation's architecture constitutes four pillars; culture, its leadership and management, structure and strategies (Burns, 2020, p. 36).
Organizational principles in architecture include vision, rhythm, anticipation, partnering, and simplification . Vision involves aligning the architect's vision with the goals of stakeholders and ensuring trust and use of the architecture .
What does organization architecture include? ›
Includes strategy, customer demands, value-creation activities, structures, technologies, management mechanisms & systems, rewards/recognition, people processes, ways of working and culture.
What is the 5 organizational structure? ›
Centralized, decentralized, linear, horizontal, traditional, matrix… there are several organizational structure examples, and each one is better suited to a particular business type and process model.
What are the five 5 principles of organization? ›
Unity of Command - This principle states that each subordinate should receive orders and be accountable to one and only one superior. Good managers discover how to master five basic functions: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling.
What are five 5 of the key elements in an organizational structure? ›
Key Elements of Organizational Structures
Five elements create an organizational structure: job design, departmentation, delegation, span of control and chain of command. These elements comprise an organizational chart and create the organizational structure itself.
What are the 5 levels of architecture? ›
The 5 phases of a design project are Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding, and Construction Administration, according to the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
, Michael Watkins writes about how to design an effective organizational architecture and help you avoid dysfunctional arrangements.