Clients with organizational design or workflow challenges often look to Forrester for help. The conversations typically start in similar ways: “We are considering a reorganization of our field marketing team and aren’t sure how we should handle it because there is overlap with our ABM and demand generation teams” or “We have reorganized all our demand functions under a single leader, but it hasn’t had the positive impact we expected. Why?” The problem is that leaders fall back on a reorganization without clear purpose if they are experiencing pressure to be more effective, reduce expenses, be more thoughtful about spending, or even turn around poor revenue trends.

Some primary questions that leaders should ask themselves include “What am I trying to solve?” “What is (are) the primary challenge(s)?” or “Are the challenges people-, process-, technology-, or governance-related?” In other words, what is the purpose of your organizational design strategy? While doing this thoughtful prep work, there are a couple of things to watch for. If you have so many challenges that it feels overwhelming, then do not reorganize until you have some of the challenges addressed. Otherwise, any changes made will likely fail. Also, know whether you are reorganizing for good or bad reasons: if you have a strong leader and you want to reward them with a larger span of control (good) … or a particular subfunction of your team is underperforming and you believe that a new leader will help them without actually understanding the root-cause challenges (bad). Until you have identified the challenges and purpose for the reorganization, don’t start the reorg — yet.

It’s not that all reorganizations are bad. There are times when it makes sense but only after unwinding the what, why, and how of your organizational needs. Consider workflow processes, efficiency gaps, possible redundancies, personalities in play, technologies involved, skills and competencies possessed, the strength of planning guidance, level of accountability, KPIs driving the wrong behavior — the list goes on. It is this plethora of possible challenges tied to an organization’s poor performance that makes uncovering the root cause complicated and difficult, especially when cross-functional teams are involved. Cross-functional teams add complexity, because each team likely has their own organizational processes and challenges, requiring leaders to explore the correct altitude for the organizational change: what teams and who should be impacted.

Leaders need to be sure that their reasons are valid, address any foundational challenges, and then address the additional aspects of a reorganization that cannot be overlooked before even developing an organizational design plan — more specifically, communication planning to articulate clear reasons for the change; a rollout plan; an analysis of pros and cons; a review of people, process, technology, and governance changes; a calculation of efficiencies achieved and the cost savings related to your reorganized team; a review of roles and associated skills and competency needs; current staff skills and competencies; a change management plan; and any HR-related work. Now you are ready to reorganize.

Interested in learning more about why your organizational design is not bringing the changes that you’d hoped for?

Whether you are considering a reorganization or have recently reorganized, there is always value in finding and addressing the root cause of the issues. Join my analyst-led roundtable on this topic at Forrester’s B2B Summit North America in Phoenix from March 31–April 3. Or if you prefer, as organizational design conversations often involve changes to team member roles and require delicacy, schedule a guidance session with me for a one-on-one analyst meeting by contacting your account team. If you’re not going to Summit this year, feel free to schedule a guidance session with me at a time that works for you.