The Install
Organization design is not complete when the chart is approved
The Install redesigns job architecture, roles, spans, layers, and decision authority, then carries that design from approval into live work.
- Timeline
- Defined after the fit call.
- Scope
- Set by organization and project size.
Leadership can approve a new structure, revise the roles, and announce new authority without changing a single live decision.
Decisions return to the same people. Informal routes continue. Boundaries between functions remain unclear.
The design becomes an approved document while the organization keeps operating as before.
Two starting conditions
Two starting conditions, one structural requirement
The Install serves two principal situations:
An organization being rebuilt
The strategy, ownership, or business model has changed, and the existing structure no longer fits what the organization needs to do next.
An organization that has outgrown the structure that brought it here
The business has expanded, but decisions and roles still depend on the founder or a small group of senior leaders.
In both situations, a new chart is insufficient. The organization needs a clear answer to how work will operate, who decides, where authority stops, and how the design will enter practice.
When it fits
When does The Install fit?
- The organization is entering a period of growth or restructuring.
- The strategy has changed, but roles and structure have not moved with it.
- The founder or CEO remains the point of resolution for most decisions.
- Functions overlap or important results lack a clear owner.
- Layers and handoffs have accumulated without a clear operating reason.
- A design has been approved but has not changed how decisions are made.
- Leadership wants AI reflected in the target model but has not decided where it genuinely fits.
- The organization needs enactment and change management, not another organization chart.
Scope of the engagement
What can the engagement include?
The scope is set against the organization's condition, and may include:
- Establishing the current-state baseline.
- Designing job architecture.
- Reviewing spans and management layers.
- Defining roles and the results each role holds.
- Establishing decision rights and authority thresholds.
- Clarifying interfaces and handoffs between functions.
- Defining escalation routes.
- Connecting measures to roles and decisions.
- Introducing the new roles and authority into live work.
- Managing the communication and change required by the design.
- Observing use and correcting what does not hold in practice.
The method
6A Philosophy: six stages beneath the engagement
- 01
Awaken
Locate the blockage
Establish the mandate, intended result, scope, and the person who holds the project decision.
- 02
Assess
Establish the baseline
Examine roles, authority, workflows, information, measures, and change readiness as they operate in practice.
- 03
AI Fit
Should AI enter now?
When AI is part of the organization's ambition, make an explicit Now, Later, or No decision.
AI does not become a parallel technology plan and is not added to the restructuring simply to make the project appear more current.
- 04
Anchor
Establish who decides and what changes
Define the target roles, authority, operating principles, measures, and escalation routes.
- 05
Align
Put the design into the work
Carry the roles, authority, controls, communication, capability, and change management into operating practice.
- 06
Ascend
Establish whether the design holds
Observe live use, correct what does not work, and establish the baseline against which the organization can later review the design.
What it produces, and where it stops
The final deliverables depend on the agreed scope and may include:
What can the organization leave with?
- A current-state organization baseline.
- Target job architecture.
- Defined spans and management layers.
- Clear role and result definitions.
- Decision rights and authority thresholds.
- Functional interfaces and handoffs.
- Defined escalation routes.
- Measures connected to roles and results.
- An enactment and change-management plan.
- A record of what has entered live use.
- An operating evidence pack that supports later review.
What does it exclude?
- Total-rewards or salary-scale design.
- Individual performance assessment or employee-exit recommendations.
- Building, integrating, securing, or operating technology systems.
- Treating headcount reduction as the default purpose of restructuring.
- Publishing a standard timeline before the organization and project scope are understood.
- Assuming approval alone changes the way the organization works.
Evidence of enactment
How do we know the design entered the work?
Formal approval is not sufficient evidence of enactment.
We look for live use:
- Authority that has moved.
- Roles operating as designed.
- Decisions made within the new boundaries.
- Corrections applied when the design does not hold in practice.
Organization design is not complete until it is applied and change is managed.
Timeline
Why is there no standard published timeline?
An organization-design project cannot be estimated accurately from the service name alone.
Its scope varies with the size of the organization, what needs to be redesigned, and how far the design must be carried into enactment. The timeline is therefore defined in a written proposal after the fit call and scope review.
Do not commission a new chart when the organization needs a new way of working
If your organization is entering a restructuring, has outgrown its current design, or has approved a design that never entered practice, begin by clarifying the condition and the result that needs to change.