Beyond organisational structure: the missing puzzle piece in paving the way for digital maturity

My clients often ask, “What’s the ideal organisational structure to achieve good digital operation?”

And while much has changed in this field, expectations remain high on organisational structure as a means to achieve digital maturity. In 2019, I wrote this article about the role of structure in digital change. More recently, my fellow Charity Change Collective colleague, Carmen Barlow, has also done some good research on organisational structure. 

Structure as a starting point for digital maturity

There are, as my article and Carmen’s post explain, a few solid structure models that help an organisation become digitally mature and ready for the 21st Century market. These structures work because they’re cross-disciplinary and shake organisations free from siloed thinking. Switching to them at the start of or as part of a digital change programme sends a strong message about new priorities, direction or approach. Here are a couple of examples. 

Hybrid model

The hybrid (hub and spokes) model consists of a central hub of digital excellence where strategy, principles, ways of working and project management sit. Fanning out from the hub are spokes where implementation happens, supported by the strong digital team at their centre. Digital experts are spread throughout the organisation, easing resource bottlenecks. 

Product management model

Over the past few years, lots of organisations in both the commercial and non-profit sectors have moved over to a product ownership and product management approach. This is where there’s a cross functional team or person managing a specific element as a product, perhaps the website or the tech platform. Stakeholders contribute from the beginning to build something that’s truly useful and relevant to their needs. 

This approach also works for marketing products. A product owner (note: not a project manager but a strategic lead) oversees a team that delivers that product. A Christmas campaign, for example, might have a product owner from Individual Giving, with people from different parts of the organisation: data, digital marketing, etc, coming together to deliver the product based on their direction. 

Beyond structure

But the conclusion that both Carmen and I have reached is that there’s so much more to good digital operation than organisational structure. Structure is a great starting point, but it’s not the whole picture. It won’t solve all your problems. You could have the perfect structure, but if your ways of working aren’t fit for purpose, you’ll meet resistance. 

What do I mean by ways of working? I’m referring to the role of people, their interactions and the division of responsibilities in making change. 

Let’s take an average non-profit organisation. In the 21st century, more and more work will go through digital channels. But though the volume of work is increasing, the digital team stays the same size. As the need for digital support grows, the lack of digitally skilled people will cause bottlenecks that prevent rollout of essential changes. With the skillset trapped in one team, progress will slow or even stall.

So the organisation adopts the hybrid model. This structure increases capacity, yes. But it’s still not possible to get everything on their wish list done. They need to prioritise: choose what they will do but also what they will NOT do. The issue here is strategic (i.e. about how an organisation plans and prioritises), not structural. 

If we look at the issue from the perspective of audience-centricity - which is the approach most nonprofits say they want to take, the work isn’t organised by team but by audience journey. There are so many functions involved in journey design and implementation that team structure on its own cannot fix everything. 

This diagram shows the functions needed to design a journey. Depending on the size of the organisation, some of these functions will be covered by comms, brand or planning teams, some by data or analytics teams, some by technology or IT teams. But they all need to come together to design, implement and optimise an audience journey. 

Again, structure alone will help, but it won’t solve your problems. It’s more about the process and bringing everyone together. It’s about creating a culture where teams work together to design, test and implement a project in time limited chunks under the direction of a product owner. It’s about moving away from countless levels of sign-off that take days to secure and can slow down a project.  

Start with structure, but don’t forget ways of working

If you’re undergoing structural change, cherry pick what works for your organisation from these models. But do it in the knowledge that structure, while being a strong first step, isn’t going to solve your problems. You also need to look at ways of working: prioritisation, sign offs, meeting structure and hierarchies.