Our impact

Creating strategic alignment through organisational design

Ensuring ‘fit for purpose’ organisational design which aligns strategy with structure and lays the blueprint for efficient and streamlined operations for the future

The Challenge

We were invited to conduct an organisational review of a Branch of a significant Department of the Victorian Public Service. The client was looking for a provider who brought a strategic perspective about contemporary organisations, specialist expertise in organisation design methodology and a process which would engage key stakeholders and staff along the way.

Our Approach

Guided by our underlying philosophy that we work ‘side by side’ in genuine partnership with our clients we firstly defined joint guiding principles for the project. These principles informed the way in which we engaged people within the Branch in the work, the ethics and boundaries associated with our role as consultants and ensured clarity about authority and governance.

We then commenced the Discovery phase which included desktop review, external best practice review, a survey and a series of discovery interviews and focus groups with organisational representatives. These important conversations helped us to understand the nature of work required within the Branch (given its’ strategy, direction and priorities) and critical pain points with the current structure. Our rigorous analysis of both the qualitative and quantitative data enabled us to evaluate the work of the Branch from the perspective of the different vertical layers of work complexity and the horizontal process flows across the organisation as a whole.

Moving into the Design phase and guided by our understanding of recognised theoretical disciplines such as Requisite Organisation, Systems Leadership and Human Centred Design, we were able to generate a high level Systems Map or Operating Model of the desired future state for the Branch. This showed the interrelationships between various functions of the Branch and their external constituencies. We also articulated design principles which would guide the organisation structure design ensuring alignment between strategy and structure. Further validation conversations with the Executive and key stakeholders enabled us to refine the outputs prior to moving to the next level of detail of the proposed structure. As the detailed design phase continued we partnered with in-house HR resources to scope functions and roles where significant change was required. Creation of role profiles was completed by in-house resources with us providing peer review to ensure alignment to strategic intent and retain integrity of the structural solution. Beyond this step in the process we continued to play an advisory role to support the ‘Align’ and ‘Sustain’ phases as the operationalisation of the Branch transformation project continued.

The Impact

The impact of the Branch re-design has been significant, creating a new model for delivery of services to customers, re-aligning resources to emerging areas of need and removing duplication which existed due to legacy arrangements. Furthermore, staff were engaged and consulted throughout the process, increasing ownership of the new design which resulted in smoother transition to a new way of working.

The re-design approach has provided the Branch with a refreshed structure which is ‘future ready’ and a model for how to undertake similar change projects in the future.