If you are a manager, you might be asked to organize 1,200 people – or 12,000.
But to illustrate a key principle: Let’s start with just 12 people.
Are you able to organize them?
We have created a challenge with 12 roles in a Research & Development unit in a pharmaceutical firm. The current organization is not ideal –so the task is to allocate the roles to teams in a better way.
In the document posted below, you will see descriptions of the roles and their interdependencies. The document gives you a bit of context (but you can complete the challenge without it):
- …organization design is fundamentally about “clustering” – finding the best possible grouping of roles – or, at higher levels of the organization: Units, such as departments or business units.
- …optimal clustering can only be done by taking into consideration interdependencies between roles…
- …which means that it becomes a difficult task: Most people will need to think hard to produce a good solution, even with just 12 elements (so imagine doing this manually with 120, 1,200, or 12,000 roles). It requires focused attention, even when the tool (like here) hightlights for you what the interdependencies are…
- …but it is now possible to map these problems using a Design Structure Matrix (DSM), use The Reconfig algorithm to automate the clustering, and also express the quality of the solution using a quantitative indicator (the “speedometer” in the Figure above).
If you have followed this blog for a while, you are probably familiar with these principles already. But with the example with 12 roles, you’ll see how it works in practice.
To give it a try, go to:
https://www.reconfig.no/challenge (Select “Start tutorial” first; if you directly to “Start challenge”, you get a more complex challenge with 42 roles!)
By the way, we will likely post new challenges in the future, so stay tuned.
Let me know what you think by adding a comment below!
If you want more information about Reconfig, you can download a white paper from the web site or get in touch with us by sending a message.