Org Design in Practice
Designing With a Wider Lens:
Using Data and Simulation to De-Risk Design Decisions
Jeanna Kozak, Dean Walsh – Orgsure,
Elliott Baron + Michael Fraser – Orgvue
Learn how to test organization design decisions using a broader range of organizational data and simulations to surface trade-offs, risks, and value impacts before restructuring.
Organization design decisions are often made by changing structure and assuming outcomes will improve. Many redesigns fail because those assumptions go untested or rely on a narrow set of readily available data.
This session introduces a practical, test-driven approach that draws on both commonly used data and less familiar but decision-critical data to evaluate design options before committing to change. Participants will see how to move from design ideas to explicit hypotheses, then to safe-to-try tests using data such as cost, headcount, spans, demand, throughput, decision latency, and other indicators of coordination, flow, and constraint.
Using realistic scenarios, the session demonstrates how early-stage models and simulations compare design options side by side. These tests surface trade-offs, unintended consequences, and value impacts across cost, capacity, flow, and outcomes. The focus is on improving decision quality and risk awareness.
Participants will gain
- A repeatable hypothesis-and-test framework that incorporates both readily available and underused organizational data
- Worked examples showing how multiple data types can be combined to model cost, capacity, flow, and value impact
- A practical approach for identifying and expanding the data needed to compare design options with greater confidence
Jeanna Kozak leads enterprise organization design and transformation using a test-driven, data-informed approach to de-risk major design decisions. She brings more than 20 years of experience leading large-scale transformations in Fortune 50 environments, including post-merger integration, shared services, and platform operating models across healthcare and professional services.
Her work focuses on using workforce analytics, scenario modeling, and emerging OD and AI tools to evaluate structural choices under uncertainty. Jeanna partners with senior leaders to make assumptions explicit, stress-test operating models before implementation, and compare design options based on risk, trade-offs, and value impact, not just org charts.
Dean Walsh holds a PhD in Organization Studies with a focus on structural forms, the role of informal structures in decision-making and influence, and the application of social network analysis in organizational assessment. He also earned an MBA with concentrations in management and information systems. As a consultant with more than 20 years of experience, Dean has advised companies on structural design, work and role alignment, team and job design, and governance and operating model alignment, integrating academic training with practical application. Building on this work, he co-founded Orgsure to extend these principles through scalable, data-driven tools that help leaders better understand how work is defined and managed.
Elliott Baron works at the intersection of organizational design, workforce analytics, and enterprise decision-making, with a strong grounding in highly data-driven financial services environments. As a Manager at Orgvue, he partners with financial services organizations to support enterprise-wide org design, workforce planning, and transformation initiatives.
Drawing on his experience at Goldman Sachs and his current work with executive teams, Elliott focuses on turning workforce and activity data into actionable insight. His work enables leaders to model scenarios, test assumptions, and connect design choices to outcomes across cost, capacity, and execution.
Michael Fraser brings a practitioner’s view of how organizations build the capability to use data and modeling well over time. As Head of Customer Success, North America at Orgvue, he works directly with clients and leads teams that help organizations embed org design and workforce analytics into real decision processes.
With more than 15 years of experience across organization design, transformation, and workforce planning in New Zealand, the UK, Europe, and North America, Michael has supported clients in financial services, FMCG, technology, manufacturing, transportation, and the public sector. He is passionate about helping organizations develop lasting capability to do meaningful work more effectively, rather than treating design as a one-time exercise.