Steps we recommend to get up and running quickly in Functionly when planning a restructure
In this guide
2. Consider your organization's existing strengths and weaknesses
2.1. Create a Current State Scenario
2.2. Looking for strengths and weaknesses
3. Duplicating and designing a restructure scenario
3.1. Suggestions for designing your first restructure scenario
3.2. Designing multiple restructure scenarios
1. Start with strategy
There needs to be a compelling reason to embark on an organization restructure. Without one, it's hard to have a vision of the end goal to design in Functionly. Most reasons for planning a restructure revolve around a change in strategy brought on by:
- Reducing costs
- Refocusing product or service offerings
- Changes in leadership
- External market conditions (such as the impact of a pandemic)
- Internal issues stifling execution, like communication silos
Functionly will be most valuable to those planning restructures when used as a tool to assess how a proposed org design scenario effectively enables a shift to the new desired strategy.
So, make sure you're clear on the reasons why you need to plan your restructure.
2. Consider your organization's existing strengths and weaknesses
Before planning a restructured org it's important to have an accurate view of your current orgnization (You'll hear us refer to this often as your "current state"). This allows you to visualize and thoroughly understand existing strengths and weaknesses. It also allows for a baseline from which to pivot on new scenarios. In Functionly, you can have any number of scenarios.
Follow these steps in Functionly to create a current state:
1. Create a new scenario by clicking "Create new scenario" (skip to 2 if you're already in a new scenario) on the My Organization screen.
a. In the Create new scenario options box, create a scenario name (e.g. "Current Org"), choose the relevant Library template.
b. Under Import people from choose Skip for now.
c. Click the create scenario button
2. Import people. Select the People tab in the design tools pane on the left hand side of screen.
a. Click the "Add people" button and follow the instructions here to import your existing people. (see screenshot to right)
3. Build/Edit the team structure. Depending on what people import method you used, the import process may have automatically built your team structure and allocated people, the next step is to add groups to show that people are part of a team.
4. Allocate functions to leaders of teams as accountabilities. From the Functions tab in the left-hand menu, drag and drop function categories or individual functions to the appropriate manager of a team. Keep in mind the idea here is to accurately reflect what currently happens in your org. So be sure to allocate functions which represent actual reality, and not how you wish things would be (that comes later)!
5. Allocate roles, functions and responsibilities within teams. Once functions are allocated to teams, it's time to go into further detail by assigning roles, functions and responsibilities to people within teams.
a. Enter the team editor by clicking the edit team button on any team on the org-design canvas (see screenshot to right).
b. In the team editor, select the Jobs tab in the design tool pane.
c. Allocate jobs (roles) to the people within the team by dragging and dropping a job title directly on to a person.
🗒️ Jobs in this list are part of the library template you chose for this org scenario. You'll find jobs are categorized in broad function categories. You can also search for a job using the search field at the top of the jobs tab.
If a job you need isn't in the library, you can choose a similar job and rename it by clicking the ellipsis next to the job name. Or you can add new jobs by clicking add job template in any category.
❗Many jobs in the job library already have functions assigned to them. These are typical functions this job would perform. Make sure you check the preassigned functions and delete any that aren't relevant for this job in your org.
d. Allocate functions to people with an assigned job role by dragging and dropping from the Functions tab in the design tools pane.
e. Repeat this for all teams.
💡 Divide and conquer through collaboration
Depending on the size of your org, the process of allocating functions to teams and responsibilities to people can take some time. Also, often one single person isn't able to accurately assign all these elements to every team and person.
Our suggestion here is to enlist the help of team managers. Not only will they help speed up this process, but they're also in the best position to accurately allocate the functions and responsibilities within their team, giving you a more accurate representation of your org's current state.
You can add other users to a scenario using the Share button in the top right corner. Add a user by entering their email address. Be sure to select "editor" from the drop down list if you'd like user to be able to directly edit the scenario.
That's it! If you've followed all the steps so far, you should now have an accurate design reflecting your org's current state.
How to look for strengths and weaknesses
As mentioned earlier, the point of designing our current state is to allow you to visualise and thoroughly understand existing strengths and weaknesses.
Here are two suggestions for how to approach this:
- Subjectively: Now you have your entire org designed in Functionly, you can take a high level view and analyse structures, reporting lines, roles and responsibilities. Knowing the strategy goals you have in mind for your restructure (as we mentioned at the beginning of this guide), cast your eye around the org and ask yourself questions like:
- Does it make sense how certain teams are aligned within the org?
- Does the team hierarchy make sense?
- Do we have the right people leading the right teams?
- Are there obvious bottlenecks or silos?
- Objectively: Functionly automatically warns you of potential gaps, cracks and overlaps within the function and responsibility allocations of teams and people. Throughout the application, you may notice several indicators next to functions and people:
- Red dots
Summing up
These are just a few suggestions - the goal of designing the current state is for you to determine strengths and weaknesses so as to be able to take a clear view into designing your first restructure scenario, and using this as a point to pivot from.
3. Duplicating and designing a restructure scenario
With the current state scenario completed, it's time to design your first restructure scenario. Our recommendation is to duplicate your current state scenario - including all the function library, people, structure, roles and responsibilities - and use this as the starting point for your redesign. Redesigning an org structure in Functionly is simple with our drag and drop interface.
It is possible to duplicate only some elements of your current state scenario. For example, only the function library and people. This might be useful when you're planning on making a major restructure and want to start with an entirely blank org design canvas.
See this article to understand how to duplicate your current state scenario.
Suggestions for designing your first restructure scenario
Consider the overall strategy you defined as being a catalyst for the restructure. Then also take in to account the strengths and weaknesses you identified. Combine these together and use them to consider the following when designing your restructure:
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- Consider structuring around different org design models: There are a number of typical org design models which suit some strategies better than others. For example, if your strategy relates to a greater customer focus, and a weakness you identified was silos causing slow customer responses, then you might design a market-oriented org structure.
- Consider cross-team collaboration: Restructures are often the result of identified weaknesses around communication and collaboration. If breaking down silos is a key driver of your restructure, consider designing a restructure scenario which incorporates matrix org design elements.
- Choose leaders capable of leading change: Restructures are often a time of ambiguity and uncertainty. To reduce resistance to change, it's important to have leaders in key teams who are capable of leading people through it.
Designing multiple restructure scenarios
Functionly allows you to create any number of scenarios. In a restructure, rarely is there one single standout scenario. Instead, it's often required to create a number of scenarios based on different assumptions.
This is simple in Functionly - just follow the same process as described previously to duplicate either the current state scenario of the first restructure scenario you designed.
You can continue to duplicate scenarios and use them as pivot point for new restructure design scenarios.
4. Involve key stakeholders
Rarely are org restructuring decisions made by a single person. It's imperative to have key stakeholders provide insight - other leadership team members, key managers, board members, investors and advisors.
Functionly gives you a number of options to share and collaborate with key stakeholders.
Export to PDF
From within any scenario you can export your org design to a PDF file.
From within a scenario, click on the down arrow next to the scenario description to bring up the scenario menu. Select "Export Chart."
This is useful for bringing to a physical meeting. You could have it printed or large format paper (or across multiple A3 sheets for example) and stick it to a whiteboard for a real-time collaboration and feedback time session.
You can also email the PDF to stakeholders who can print it off, make notes and bring it to a meeting to share thoughts.
Share a Link
You can share read only "links" to your org scenarios - much like you can share a Google doc with a link. You have the ability to make the link expire, disable it, create different links and track views from each link.
From within a scenario, click on the down arrow next to the scenario description to bring up the scenario menu. Select "Share link."
This is useful for giving stakeholders a deep look inside the org scenario, giving them the ability to navigate around it just as you would designing it yourself. Viewers of shared links cannot edit any part of you org design. There is no license cost for people who view scenarios via links.
Invite another user
You're able to invite users to both view or edit an existing scenario. But they'll also have the ability to create their own scenarios.
This is useful for the most important stakeholders who are working more deeply on the restructuring project with you, and where you'd like them to have the ability to edit your scenarios, or duplicate your scenarios to then go ahead and design their own alternative.
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