The Problem With Reorgs

Did you know that 80% of reorgs fail to achieve their objectives, and that 10% actually cause damage to the company? Chances are, you’ve probably been involved in a bad reorg. They are disruptive, they induce anxiety in your teams, and they have significant potential to cause attrition.

Yet, they are necessary.

There are many bad reasons for doing reorgs, such as the we just need to shake things up style reorg that can be most kindly described as a hope based strategy. However, there are also good reasons. Priorities change. Business conditions change. Companies get acquired, and post acquisition, need to have folks integrated to realize the value.

Our position is that if you are going to do reorgs, do them well!

A good reorg is human centered. It uses data to make decisions - not just things like commit stats to know who is best at gaming the system, but data about people. Their skills, level of engagement, and a team’s ability to effectively hire. It provides an opportunity to align the unique capabilities of your people with the business goals you are charged with achieving. While getting it wrong can cause havoc and destruction, getting it right is an amazing opportunity to radically improve business results.

We asked ourselves - if these decisions are so important, why does everyone do them in ad hoc tools? What if you could see the budget, skill, and seniority mix in teams as you are modeling changes? What if you manage tradeoffs between cost and risk in the same place where you manage change?

We built Orgspace to help software leaders manage change, so you can drive more effective organizations. We built this because we were tired of reorgs that seemed to operationalize "management by rumor", which is what happens when you lack data in context. We built this because we realized that if Conway’s Law is true - org structure will dictate software architecture, it follows that you should collaborate with your software architects when you are making org changes. We built this because we have conviction that better change management doesn’t just improve the bottom line - it also results in more engaged, happier employees.

We are opening public beta very soon, but if you are interested in making reorgs more effective and less painful right now, simply fill out the form below, or if you prefer, reach out to one of the co-founders at brian@orgspace.io or aaron@orgspace.io.

If you are interested in better reorgs, we'd love to hear from you!