Try a 30-Minute Exercise to Kick-Start your Thinking.

Sometimes just getting started is the hardest part.

Especially these days—when working from home means that the intersecting, urgent obligations seem to crowd out that all-important, but non-urgent, time to just simply think.

For those of you who are struggling to focus and get some organizational thinking started, here is a 30-minute exercise to try that will get the juices flowing, and get your strategic thinking started regarding:

These were first published on LinkedIn. If you’d like my help with this exercise, please get in touch.

Exercise: Do you need to think about your organization’s design?

This exercise is for those of you struggling to focus and get some organizational thinking done during these difficult times.

Take a nice big sheet of paper. Grab a sharpie.

Okay, now imagine that all the people in your organization went in on the Lotto Max without you, and they won, and they all gave notice the next day.

Now all you have is work, but no people to do it. You need people doing jobs. So, draw an org chart for the organization that you would re-build from scratch. Ask yourself:

• How can there be as few levels as possible between the CEO and the front line staff?

• How can I maximize the span of control (people, size of budget) of each manager?

• How can I design this to minimize program, department, or service silos?

• What functions might I outsource, or cost-share with partners?

• What measures (KPIs) could I use to show how this new structure improves client service, and streamlines work flow for our staff and volunteers?

Congratulations! You’ve just started some thinking on which you can begin to build an organizational review.

If you’d like my help with this exercise, please get in touch.