Agile Organization Design

Traditional Organization Designs

• Focus on assets and standards
• Hierarchical organization design
• Traditional organization chart
• Managed organization
• Chain of command structure
• Learning and Development Initiatives
• Motivation through compensation and promotions
• Fear of change
• Focus on internal developments and corporate identity
• Focus on designs that preserve the corporate identity
• Bureaucratic pathways
• More effort to achieve overall consent
• Incentives that drive units to be effective as silos
• Designed to avoid risks
• Changes require a deep cut into the corporate DNA
• Work is structured in bigger chunks
• Responsibilities are mostly managed by the top

Agile Organization Designs 

• Focus on opportunities and capabilities
• Flat hierarchy
• Self-organization
• Creative organization charts (to mirror the brain, a holon, etc)
• Flexibly structured around roles and projects.
• Designed to create ownership and engagement
• Motivation through engagement and intraprenerial culture
• Embracing change
• Strong focus on the market and customer satisfaction
• Focus on the simplest and most effective organization design.
• Innovative pathways
• Strong drive for achieving a "yes".
• Incentives that drive units to exchange ideas and work hand-in-hand
• Designed to embrace calculated risks as opportunities
• Change readiness is the norm
• Work is viably broken down into flexibly interacting pieces
• Responsibilities are managed by smaller autonomous working cells