The final test of your organizational plan is to examine what the structure does for you. It must be facilitative to accomplish your vision and long-term goals. You will want your existing and future structure to:
- Use the full talents of all people and resources.
- Aid coordination among the critical staff and business unit functions.
- Make communications between and among the work units easy.
- Facilitate the development, motivation, and retention of key people.
- Achieve minimum costs.
- Provide logical growth and succession of the management team.
- Facilitate coordination of special project teams within a formal structure.
Your final organizational plan must include three parts:
1. An Organizational Chart. This is a wiring diagram that shows reporting relationships and how groups of people are formed to do work. This document is one of the most important pieces of literature you produce for your plan. It provides a wealth of information to the user. Names, titles, phone numbers, and business functions are helpful to anyone trying to understand and contact people within an organization. The organizational chart provides a sense of stability, order, and security to the system. Lastly, the organizational chart defines the power and influence designated to individuals and groups within the plan.
2. The Soft Infrastructure. This is the infrastructure needed for communications flow. It is the map of how information flows through the system. It defines the flow of decision making along with the information. By default it also defines the de facto leadership of an organization. After all, the people who make the decisions are the ones seen as leaders.
3. The Hard Infrastructure. This is the infrastructure needed to support the plan. It may be in the form of annexes to support the business plan. For long-term or strategic thinking, it may include a facilities utilization plan or an equipment utilization plan.