Work Design With a Wider Lens: Using Data to Compare Design Options with Greater Confidence

Our presenters, Jeanna Kozak, Elliott Baron, and Dean Walsh shared 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, explaining that org 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.

They introduced 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.  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.