Customers want great products, but great products aren’t simply made. They are designed in an ecosystem, your organization, that can either amplify or dampen that creative process. The problem is, that most companies haven’t been organized with these specific needs in mind, but are instead simplistically grouped by function. The good news is, organizations can be designed too. This session intends to share concepts and tools that will teach attendees how to frame and implement organization design actions.

1. Product Design &
Organization Design
@MATTBARCOMB #WUDCLE2016 MATT.BARCOMB@LEANDOG.COM
Two Sides of the Same Coin

2. Product Design
Organization Design

3. The design problem
Organizations as ecosystems
Some O.D. techniques
What we’ll cover...

4. The Design Problem

5. Intentional process of
creating or modifying a
system to
What is design?
meet a need.

6. When doesn’t it work well?
How do you sense it?
How are the outputs affected?
Product design process

7. Skills & Tools
Interest & Well-being
Encompassing Ecosystem
Impacts to a creative process

8. Conway’s Law
“Organizations which
design systems are
constrained to produce
designs which are copies
of the communication
structures of these
organizations.”
-- M. Conway, 1967

9. Organizations As Ecosystems

10. Organizations can be
intentionally modified
to meet a need
Organizations are ecosystems
that amplify or dampen the
creative product design process

11. Organization Design
Intentionally influencing a social system
so that its processes and structures,
both explicit and implicit,
are better configured to achieve desired outcomes.

12. Work, Flow &
Metrics
Work Breakdown
& Specification
Technical
Practices
(…)
Teamwork
Cadence &
Improvement
Multi-team
Coordination
Flow-based
Road Mapping
Strategy
Design
Strategy
Deployment
People-focused
Talent Development
Product/Service
Orientation
Service-driven
Sales & Marketing
Portfolio
Planning &
Prioritization
Value-based
Organization Design
Internal
Coaching
Product
Design &
Definition
Influence Themes

13. Organization Design
Better designed organizations
increase the likelihood
of better designed products.

14. Some O.D. Techniques

15. Physical environment
Collaborative Spaces
Variable Spaces
Seating Alignment

16. Leadership Structures
Executive Product Role
CIO vs. CTO
Report to CFO vs COO vs CEO

17. Dev Team
Reporting Patterns
VP
Prod Dev
CEO
CPO
VP Sales
Dir
Marketing
PM &
BA
Chief
Architect
Dev
Manager
Engineer
& Tester
Tech
Lead

18. Org Purpose Map
Investment
Return
Social
Ideal
Worker
Well-being
Customer
Value
Unsure/Not Aligned

19. Org NetMap
Reporting
Assignment
Exchange
Influence

20. Value Flow Diagram

21. NetMap Value Flow Overlay

22. Reorganization
Small Batches
Self-Organizing

23. Questions?