Organizations are facing increasing pressure to improve performance by improving service, reducing costs, increasing efficiencies, and demonstrating continuous improvement. Organization design plays an important role in helping organizations implement changes that support optimal performance. Organizational design decisions begin when an organization faces some very essential questions:
Organization design is critical, yet often fails because of predictable flaws in the process, such as limited involvement of key stakeholders and a focus on organization charts, rather than on important organizational issues. Simply moving boxes on an organization chart will not achieve an effective organization design. Instead, organizations must consider a variety of factors to help determine if issues exist that an organization design intervention would address.
At Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy and technology consulting firm, our approach to organization design is tailored to meet each client’s unique situation. It addresses the key design dimensions that improve organization performance and overall effectiveness. This holistic, multi-dimensional approach enables the identification of root causes of organization problems, and it focuses on coordination of inter-units and integration of people and work activities, both required elements of an effective organizational structure. Each dimension is continuously assessed throughout the design process for its effect on the organization design. Using our proven approach, best practices, and established methodology, our experienced professionals will apply the insights gained from this analysis to improve the effectiveness of specific organizational dimensions. Our design process centers on maximizing the fit among an organization’s structure, its internal organizational components, and the external environmental conditions. This organization design framework builds high-performing organizations and incorporates planned change into the process to help organizations achieve the full benefits of a new design.
Booz Allen uses a five-phase approach to create a strategic organization design with an integrated and continual emphasis on communication and planned change. Our five-phase organization design methodology produces effective organizations by focusing on top-down guidance with a bottom-up design.The focus of Phase 1 is on crafting design criteria that represent the organization capabilities required to achieve strategic goals, while also defining the boundaries of the design process. Phase 2 provides an assessment of the organization and is vital to gaining a shared understanding of the current state. This data provides critical information on baseline conditions and identifies the key transition initiatives that will have the greatest influence on achieving the desired organization design. Phases 1 and 2 are key to gathering the data required to perform a gap analysis that will provide the strategic drivers for the remaining phases. Phase 3 is the critical step in gaining conceptual agreement on key design elements: structural factors, coordinating mechanisms, and design parameters. Once there is agreement on the conceptual design, Phase 4 begins. In this phase, a work group creates detailed project plans that will result in a detailed design of the new organization outlining the structure, processes, integrative mechanisms, human resource requirements, and alignment of human capital. Phase 5 prioritizes the transition initiatives required to close the gaps between current and future states as part of the plan to stand up the new design.
The outcomes of a successful organization design project often include:
Booz Allen has partnered with many government and private sector clients to successfully develop and implement organization design efforts, including:
Contract Number: OPM-01-01050
Contract Period: 31 March 2012