Capabilities
Organisational design is the work of structuring an organisation, its roles, accountabilities and reporting lines, so that it can actually deliver what it is trying to do. Done well it is almost invisible. Done badly, or by accident, it becomes the thing that quietly frustrates every other effort.
PEF Consulting Partners designs organisations around the work, drawing on operating model and organisational change delivered inside BP’s global programmes and E.ON Next’s Kraken transformation. Structure follows the operating model, never the other way round.
How the organisation is arranged into teams and functions, designed around how work needs to flow rather than around history or personalities.
Clear definition of who is responsible for what, and crucially who decides what, so that accountability is real and decisions happen at the right level rather than escalating by default.
Getting the balance right between too many layers, which slows everything down, and spans of control too wide to manage well.
Moving from the current structure to the target one in a way that is handled properly and with care, because organisational change affects people’s jobs. See workforce transition.
Organisational design should follow the operating model, not precede it. Structure is one dimension of how an organisation works, and designing it in isolation from process, data and technology produces a new org chart that changes the boxes without changing the outcomes. We design structure as part of a coherent whole.
Restructuring is often the visible output, but the work is broader: accountabilities, decision rights and how the structure supports the way the organisation needs to operate. A restructure that only moves boxes rarely changes anything.
Carefully and explicitly, through proper workforce transition, because a good design delivered badly to the people affected undoes much of its value.
We bring senior people who have delivered exactly this at scale. Honest advice, and accountability for the outcome.