Here's the thing about organizational design consulting: it's expensive, time-consuming, and often leaves you in the same spot six months later when new challenges emerge. I've watched countless companies spend hundreds of thousands on slick presentations that gather dust while the real work of adapting their organization happens organically—or doesn't happen at all.
But what if you could build the muscle to tackle these challenges yourself? Not every organizational problem needs a $300,000 consulting engagement. Many companies already have the raw materials to become more thoughtful about how they structure themselves, make decisions, and organize work.
The most adaptable organizations I know didn't get that way through periodic consulting interventions. They developed internal capabilities that let them continuously evolve their structures as business conditions change. Amazon didn't hire consultants every time they needed to reorganize—they built systems and people who could think systematically about organizational challenges.
This isn't about eliminating external expertise entirely. It's about building enough internal capability that you can reserve expensive consulting for genuinely strategic transformations while handling the day-to-day organizational adjustments yourself.
Organizational design sounds more complicated than it actually is. At its core, it's about answering some fundamental questions: How should work flow through your company? Who makes which decisions? How do teams coordinate with each other? What gets measured and rewarded?
The problem isn't that these questions are impossibly complex. The challenge is that most organizations only think about them during crisis moments—when decision-making has ground to a halt, when teams are stepping on each other, or when nobody seems accountable for outcomes.
Traditional consulting follows a predictable playbook:
This approach can provide valuable outside perspective, but it creates a big dependency problem. What happens when market conditions shift again in six months? When your strategy evolves? When you realize the new structure isn't working as intended?
Companies that develop internal organizational design thinking can respond to these changes dynamically. They make smaller, more frequent adjustments rather than waiting for organizational pain to justify another consulting engagement.
The foundation of internal organizational design isn't fancy frameworks or complex methodologies. It's having the right people asking the right questions on a regular basis and with access to the right tools.
Look for people who already think systemically about problems. These might be strategy folks who naturally consider how different business elements connect. Operations people who understand how work actually flows through the organization. Business leaders who've successfully led cross-functional initiatives.
Don't assume this has to live in HR. Some of the best organizational designers I know come from unexpected backgrounds—former consultants who joined internally, product managers who understand systems thinking, or finance people who see how organizational dysfunction shows up in the numbers.
I've seen success with small, dedicated teams that combine different perspectives. Strategy brings business context. Operations understands practical constraints. People functions know cultural dynamics. The magic happens when these viewpoints collaborate rather than operate in silos.
Traditional organizational thinking focuses on creating neat hierarchies and clear reporting lines. Modern organizational design requires more nuanced thinking about how different elements interact and influence each other.
This means moving beyond org charts to understand how work actually gets done. It means considering how a change in one area might ripple through other parts of the organization. It means designing solutions that address multiple organizational dimensions simultaneously rather than fixing isolated problems.
The skill development doesn't require expensive external training. Start with systems thinking resources, design thinking methodologies, and change management principles. Many of these capabilities can be developed through online courses, business school programs, or partnerships with local universities.
You don't need elaborate methodologies, but you do need some consistency in how you approach organizational challenges. This prevents you from starting from scratch every time and helps build confidence in your recommendations.
An effective process typically includes: understanding the business context, mapping how things currently work, identifying specific problems to solve, designing potential solutions, and planning implementation. The specific tools matter less than having a systematic approach you can adapt to different situations.
Here's where many internal teams get stuck: they try to manage organizational design work using PowerPoint and Excel. While these tools can work for simple projects, they quickly become unwieldy when you're dealing with complex organizational structures, multiple scenarios, or ongoing changes.
Modern organizational design software has evolved significantly over the past few years. Built for purpose tools like Functionly, Workday's organizational planning modules, and specialized platforms like Kumu for network mapping can dramatically improve your ability to visualize, model, and communicate organizational changes.
The real value isn't just in creating prettier org charts. These platforms let you model different organizational scenarios, track the impact of changes over time, and maintain living documents that update as your organization evolves. Some tools integrate with HR systems to automatically reflect changes in roles, reporting relationships, and team structures.
For teams just starting out, even simple tools like Miro or Lucidchart can provide significant advantages over traditional approaches. The key is having software that supports collaboration, version control, and scenario modeling rather than forcing you to recreate everything from scratch for each project.
Don't underestimate the communication benefits either. Interactive organizational models that stakeholders can explore and provide feedback on tend to generate much more meaningful input than static PowerPoint presentations.
Rather than inventing organizational design principles from scratch, smart internal teams leverage frameworks that have proven effective across different contexts.
Jay Galbraith's STAR model examines five interconnected elements: Strategy, Structure, Processes, Rewards, and People. What makes this framework particularly useful for internal teams is its systematic yet flexible nature.
Start with strategy alignment—ensure your organizational choices directly support business objectives. Then work through each element systematically, examining how current structures, processes, reward systems, and people capabilities either support or hinder strategic execution.
The interconnected nature forces you to think holistically. Change the structure, and you need to consider impacts on processes and rewards. Modify decision-making processes, and you might need different people capabilities.
For organizations focused on building competitive advantages, organizing around critical capabilities often works better than traditional functional structures.
Map the capabilities required for your business strategy—product development, customer experience, data analytics, operational excellence. Then design structures, roles, and processes that optimize how these capabilities develop and deploy.
This approach works well internally because it directly connects organizational structure to business results. It also provides clear criteria for making trade-offs when resources are limited or priorities compete.
You don't need to become a fully agile organization to benefit from agile thinking about structure and decision-making. Principles like autonomous teams, cross-functional collaboration, and rapid iteration can be applied selectively.
Experiment with autonomous teams for specific projects. Create cross-functional squads that operate alongside traditional structures. Test time-limited organizational arrangements before committing to permanent changes.
The key insight from agile approaches is treating organizational design as an ongoing experiment rather than a fixed solution.
Having good organizational design ideas is one thing. Actually implementing changes successfully is another challenge entirely, particularly when you're doing it internally without extensive change management experience.
Internal teams face a credibility challenge that external consultants don't. Your colleagues know you, which can work against you when proposing significant changes to how things work.
Ground your recommendations in solid analysis and external benchmarking. Use data to support design decisions. Reference successful practices from other companies. Most importantly, involve key stakeholders in the design process rather than presenting solutions as final recommendations.
Consider strategic partnerships with external thought leaders or academic institutions. This doesn't require full consulting engagements—workshops, advisory relationships, or research partnerships can add external validation to internal work.
Large-scale organizational changes create risk and resistance. Mitigate both through carefully planned pilot programs that test design principles on manageable scales.
If you're implementing new decision-making structures, start with specific types of decisions or single business units. Test new team structures on time-limited projects before rolling out broader changes. Experiment with modified processes in areas where failure won't be catastrophic.
Document what works and what doesn't during pilots. Success stories build momentum for broader changes. Learning from failures improves subsequent implementation.
Unlike external consulting projects that end with final recommendations, internal organizational design should include ongoing monitoring and adjustment capabilities.
This might include:
Plan for iteration from the beginning. Organizational design rarely works perfectly on the first attempt. Successful internal teams build adjustment and refinement into their implementation approach.
Building internal capabilities doesn't mean eliminating external expertise entirely. The smartest approach recognizes when internal capabilities are sufficient and when external support genuinely adds value.
Internal teams understand organizational culture, informal networks, and historical context in ways external consultants can't quickly replicate. They can design solutions that work within existing constraints rather than recommending changes that look good theoretically but face practical implementation challenges.
Cost effectiveness is obvious, but the strategic advantages often prove more valuable. Internal capabilities enable continuous organizational evolution rather than periodic restructuring projects. You can make ongoing adjustments as conditions change rather than waiting for organizational pain to justify major interventions.
Interactive Chart: use tools to zoom, view accountability details, etc... © Functionly. Tools like Functionly can augment an organization's internal capabilities around organizational design.
Some situations genuinely benefit from external perspective and expertise. Major transformations involving significant cultural changes or industry disruption often require external facilitation to overcome internal resistance and blind spots.
External consultants bring benchmarking perspectives and industry best practices that internal teams might not access otherwise. For entirely new organizational challenges—rapid international expansion, major technology transformations, significant cultural shifts—external expertise can accelerate learning and reduce risks.
Consider combining external expertise with internal capability building. Engage consultants for complex transformation projects, but structure engagements to include significant knowledge transfer that strengthens internal muscles.
This creates the best of both worlds: external expertise for strategic challenges, internal capabilities for routine organizational adjustments and ongoing evolution.
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The goal isn't to eliminate consulting entirely—it's to build organizational adaptability that reduces dependence on external intervention for routine challenges. Organizations with strong internal capabilities can evolve continuously rather than lurching between periods of stability and disruptive change.
Start small, experiment thoughtfully, and build organizational design thinking iteratively. The investment pays dividends through both cost savings and improved organizational agility. More importantly, it creates competitive advantages through enhanced ability to adapt structures to changing conditions and opportunities.
The most successful organizations I know treat organizational design as an ongoing capability rather than a periodic project. They've built the internal muscle to continuously adapt how they work as their business evolves. That's a competitive advantage no consultant can deliver—it has to be built from within.
About the author: Tim Brewer is co-founder and CEO of Functionly, a workforce planning and transformation tool that helps leaders make important decisions. Try it free today.