THOUGHTFUL ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
Org Topologies™ helps organizations navigate change with a systemic approach.
By aligning structures with strategic goals, Org Topologies™ makes transformation measurable and scalable. Its powerful visual language empowers leaders to improve performance, engage teams, and optimize for different goals, such as fast-flow delivery, innovation, or organizational adaptiveness.
GET THE PRIMER
Org Topologies™ Primer is a free, comprehensive summary of the Org Topologies™ method to help you assess and design your agile ecosystem towards its thoughtful evolution over time.
Org Topologies™
The Org Topologies™ is an overview of recognizable organizational archetypes observable in any value-creating organizations, including high-tech R&D and product development, at any scale. These sixteen archetypes serve as organizational building blocks for the assessing and designing organizational topologies with a specific optimizing goal in mind.
Org Topologies™ Mapping provides a radically transparent language for organizational development. Using this powerful visual language, we can now communicate the org design of the value-creating parts of the organization using a very specific vocabulary.
Sixteen Archetypes
The Org Topologies™ Map is an overview of recognizable organizational archetypes observable in any value-creating organizations, including high-tech R&D and product development, at any scale. These sixteen archetypes serve as organizational building blocks for designing ecosystems with a specific goal in mind.
Two Axes
The archetypes are ordered according to their fluency along two axes:
-
Scope of Capabilities is the level of cross-functionality and fast-flow in creating value.
-
Scope of Work refers to the level of knowledge and co-ownership among the work units.
Four Vertical Levels
The four vertical levels (Y, A, B, C) are one of the key concepts of the Org Topologies map, and hence they have distinctive colors. This is because improvements along the horizontal axis (0, 1, 2, 3) have been well-known now for decades (e.g. cross-functional teams, the DevOps movement, the so-called "left-shifting" of teams), while the vertical aspect of broadening of scope and co-ownership is a harder concept to grasp and implement.
Six Paradigm Shifts
The space between the boxes is where paradigm shifts happen. The single vertical red line and the double horizontal red line symbolize the hardest paradigm shifts to be crossed. Most of the organizations stay within the Y0 - A3 area. And most of the so-called "agile transformation" focus on team-level improvement only, moving teams towards A3 in the best-case scenario. The space above the double red line, especially the B2-C3 zone, is where holistic organizational adaptivity (a.k.a. business agility) can be achieved.
Power of the Language
Org Topologies™ Mapping provides a radically transparent language for organizational development. Using this powerful visual language, we can now communicate the org design of the value-creating parts of the organization using a very specific vocabulary.
For instance, instead of the following rather vague statements:
-
"We have agile teams"
-
"We do Scrum"
-
"We manage dependencies with a quarterly PI event"
-
"Our stream-aligned teams are formed around value streams"
we can be much more specific with the language of Org Topologies™, saying:
-
"We have an R&D where most of the teams are A2, and some will grow to become A3. There is also a Y2 functional group that supports these A-level teams."
-
"Our vision is to elevate the teams to form a B2-B3 level ecosystem with all teams working on customer-facing shared business objectives."
Notice how the Org Topologies™ language helps to communicate both the current and the target org designs. We have noticed that such a more elaborate explanation of org design and development invites a deeper conversation on the current challenges and drives more systemic improvements.
Navigate your organizational improvement journey with a powerful map.
Org Topologies™ in its essence is a two-dimensional space with 16 distinctive boxes - atomic organizational archetypes. That space helps you to plot your current operating model by positioning individuals, departments, and teams on the map. This will give a profound understanding of the performance of your value-creating organizational ecosystem.
Once you've plotted your current state, you can start exploring options for an improved target organizational design that serves as your north star.
Knowing your current and target states allows you to control the gradual navigation toward organizational-wide improvements, thoughtfully adjusting your course as your organization learns along its transformation journey.
Develop and sustain higher-level organizational ecosystems for maximizing organizational agility, innovation, and resilience.
In the scope of R&D, this is a space where business and IT work as one on what is most important. The structure is value-driven and continuously shapes and forms around value creation.
Org Topologies™ provides a clear set of principles and rich tools (called Elevating Structures) to help leaders and change agents uplift their IT, R&D and other value-creating departments to become business-oriented, agile teams of teams.
Benefits of Org Topologies™
Senior Product Owner
"I used Org Topologies for the last two years myself, to answer questions regarding the agility of a team and the current project, and to identify the next steps moving forward. It supported me as a basis for alignment with our clients in identifying where we stand right now and, if there is a wish to evolve, which would be the right direction and actions. I recommend checking out if the Org Topologies might work for you as well"
Scrum Master / Agile Coach
"There are many tools out there that promise organizations the moon, but somehow with each attempt to improve the # of issues, only multiply. Frustrations and waste increase, while retention and resilience decrease, which is especially painful and costly in time of crisis. Org Topologies™ IS the missing link that orchestrates the connection between the REAL issue at hand and RIGHT solution."
