Marina, what tasks/projects are you currently working on in terms of organizational design/organizational design?
Currently in the process of preparing and configuring a hybrid management model for remote and office employees. After forcing all employees to work remotely and having no problems with this transition, I would like to add more mobility to the company in the future and provide for remote working for 50% of employees at all times. This entails a further change in communication within the company, fixing additional metrics on the effectiveness of teams and interaction with each other.
What trends in the formation of organizational structures can you highlight now?
Our organizational structure has been shaped by the experience of successful global IT companies. The main basis for us is mobility and the speed of change. High speed of information dissemination, high speed of decision making and implementation. And one of the most important approaches - the belief that the company employs very highly qualified people and it is important to help them work and create a product, but not to interfere with coordination procedures.
How, in your opinion, has the situation in the world affected the changes in approaches to management and organization of company structures?
The situation in the world has shown that any company must be flexible. To be able to rearrange quickly, to change processes, the system of interaction. This requires short ways to deliver information to all levels of the company. Another telling element was the level of team leaders. All the imperfections of the management system of any company were demonstrated in the first 2 weeks. And then, those who had the mobility and the ability to rearrange were able to fix them and become stronger. Many lethargic companies were forced to lose efficiency for several months and are not yet able to recover. The most important term of this period, it seems to me, was the term Antifragility. It became clear what Nassim Taleb was talking about. And this is the direction that companies need to move in when designing company structures, connections between them, and developing tools for interaction in any environment.
Is organizational design important only for large companies? Why?
Orgdesign is important for any company. Even if the company consists of 3 people, understanding of everyone's areas of responsibility, the ability to scale under a manager and the ability to see the company and its structure in 5 years is very important at the very beginning. Startups that start assembling the company and the business from the very beginning with an understanding of how the structure can be developed in the future and what is needed right now for that, have a better chance to grow faster than those that do it as they get it. Conceiving the company as a small family business that will consistently generate income for the family and no more is also an organizational design. That includes resources, teaching children, assigning roles, etc.
What will your talk be about at the Orgdesign conference on June 25? What will you share with attendees?
My presentation will be about the benefits of flat structures. About their flexibility and speed of setting up in different situations. And also about metrics of manageability of such systems and organization of communications within them.