Curious why Design and Design Thinking are such hot topics in business today? The relationships between enterprises and people continue to suffer deeply from an endless parade of design focusing on the wrong thing. Organizations tend to focus more on trying to design behavior and culture, rather than on designing systems to allow for behavior and culture to emerge. Embracing the differences between complexity and complication to rethink organizational systems is how we meaningfully evolve the enterprise.

1. MOVING
OUT OF SILOS
DESIGNING THE ENTERPRISE

2. HI, I’M KEITH
• Technologist
• Designer
• Operations Guy
• Artist
• Writer
• Amateur Historian
• Hiker
• Dad of Three
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3. GUIDING
PRINCIPALS
ChapterNo.
A Manifesto in Five Parts

4. PEOPLE ARE COMPLEX,
NOT COMPLICATED
Complicated systems can be predicted
through logic chains. Complex systems
are constantly changing in
unpredictable ways.

5. NO ONE WANTS TO BE
A LEVER PULLER
There is nothing more damaging to
organizational design than our
assumptions that people don’t want
meaning in their work.

6. YOU CAN’T DESIGN
CULTURE
Culture is the shadow of behavior. You
must design and refine systems to
support emergent behaviors to get
the culture you want.

7. CHANGE JUST
HAPPENS
The metaphor of a journey is nonsense.
Change happens all the time.
You can only control what
you do when it happens.

8. BAND-AIDS ARE
BULLSHIT
Injecting design thinking or agile
practices in pockets won’t fix an
organization’s problems.

9. FORMAL
HIERARCHY
ChapterNo.
Frederick Taylor’s Grand
Idea

10. LOOK FAMILIAR?10

11. THE GRAND IDEA
Godfather of Functional Divisions
• Proposed dividing organizations between
“Thinking Principals” and “Non-Thinking
Human Resources”
• Introduced the functional divisions to the
shop floor
• Most companies today utilize his
organizational structures
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12. COMMAND & CONTROL
Detailed Command
• Assumes Conflict is Predictable
• Accepts Order and Certainty
• Leads to Centralized Formality
and Ability at All the Top
• Communication Used is Vertical
and Linear
• Organization Fostered is
Hierarchic
• Leadership Styles are Directing
and Transactional
12
Mission Command
• Assumes Conflict is Unpredictable
• Accepts Disorder and Uncertainty
• Leads to Decentralized
Spontaneity and Ability at All
Levels
• Communication Used is Vertical
and Horizontal
• Organization Fostered is Ad Hoc
• Leadership Styles are Delegating
and Transformative

13. INJECTING
AGILE
ChapterNo.
A Band-aid on a Bleeding
Wound

14. HOW IS THIS A SOLUTION?14

15. THE GRANDFATHER OF AGILE
Helmuth von Moltke, The Elder
• ”Therefore no plan of operations extends
with any certainty beyond the first contact
with the main hostile force”
• “Strategy is a system of expedients; it is
more than a mere scholarly discipline. It is
the translation of knowledge to practical life,
the improvement of the original leading
thought in accordance with continually
changing situations.”
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16. THE
INCUBATOR
ChapterNo.
Starting from Scratch, Sort
Of

17. DIGITAL IS BULLSHIT17

18. ANSWERING ONE PROBLEM
Incubators Have a Shelf Life
• The SR-71 was initially terminated because
of Pentagon politics, not because of
obsolescence.
• When all the generals who flew it retired,
the program’s budget became a target for
those outside the loop.
• Lack of understanding of the technology was
used by detractors to discredit the aircraft.
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19. FLAT
AND FLUID
ChapterNo.
Organizing Around the Vote

20. CONTROLLED CHAOS20

21. COORDINATING ANIMAL HOUSE
Brook’s Law Is Real
• Combinatorial explosion is no joke.
• It isn’t just software development that has
limited divisibility. Nine women can’t make a
baby in a month.
• Brooks may think that his law only applies to
late projects, but communication is
continuous and complex. Adding nodes is
difficult, no matter what you are doing.
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22. INFORMAL
ORG STRUCTURE
ChapterNo.
Notes on a Monitor are How
Things Get Done

23. THE BROKEN BEGETS THE NEW23

24. LIFE FINDS A WAY
Listen to Doctor Malcomn
• Human beings will always find ways to
create connections with one another despite
“controls” put in place.
• Complexity dictates that people will behave
in unpredictable ways, particularly when
under pressure.
• Innovation happens all the time, but
organizations will only see it circumventing a
system that stifles.
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25. DESIGNING
THE ENTERPRISE
ChapterNo.
The Useful Portion of the
Program

26. BE
MISSION ORIENTED
Create a clearly articulated mission
and accept the unpredictable nature
of people. Apply agility across the
enterprise and avoid the details.

27. COMBINED ARMS
ACROSS THE ORG
Napoleon had it right. Pay attention
to his success, not his failures.
Combine capabilities, don’t group
specialties together in isolation.

28. THERE IS NO
ONE TRUE WAY
Anyone that sells you that nonsense
needs to be taken out back to the
woodshed. You need to experiment
with your own organization to find
the right path.

29. OUTSIDE IN
ENTERPRISE DESIGN
Value is created at the edges of and
org, not in the boardroom. The
people closest to the customer
understand the shifts in the market
and the unmet needs.

30. COMS DESIGN
IS EVERYTHING
You can’t design behavior or force
cultural changes. Instead, design the
channel and method of coms to
encourage behaviors and get the
message across.

31. THANK YOU
Keith Senkowski
Instagram @keithsenkowski
Twitter @ksenkowski