Measuring and monitoring organizational culture is pivotal for various reasons, and using specialized surveys such as eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) provides a nuanced understanding of how employees feel.

Organizational culture isn't static; it evolves over time due to leadership changes, business strategy shifts, or external economic and social factors. Regular monitoring allows organizations to identify these shifts and adapt accordingly. An organization's culture significantly influences how engaged employees are. Engaged employees are often more productive, more loyal, and can drive better business outcomes. By understanding the current state of the culture, interventions can be made to improve engagement and, consequently, retention.

In today's competitive job market, organizational culture is a key differentiator. Prospective employees are not only looking at compensation but also at the company's values, work environment, and growth opportunities. A positive, inclusive culture can be a major draw. Unhealthy organizational cultures can lead to increased conflicts, unethical behaviors, and potential legal liabilities. Regularly measuring culture can help in spotting red flags early and taking corrective action. With regular insights into the state of organizational culture, leadership can make informed decisions related to strategy, personnel, and operations.

eNPS surveys specifically gauge an employee's likelihood to recommend the company as a place to work. This is a clear indicator of their overall satisfaction and engagement.

eNPS questions are straightforward, leading to higher response rates. The simplicity allows for quicker analysis and action.

eNPS provides a standardized metric that companies can use for benchmarking against competitors or industry standards.

Using the example of the eNPS

Build and visualize a skills-based organization with a collaborative culture

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The future of People & Culture arrived

Being open about the intent and frequency of such surveys reinforces the idea that the company values feedback and is committed to continuous improvement. It sets the expectation for feedback loops and creates a sense of accountability. By making these surveys an integral part of the job, People and Culture professionals can gather actionable insights that directly relate to their domain.

This allows for strategic planning and interventions based on real data, not just gut feelings. Demonstrating a genuine interest in understanding and enhancing the employee experience helps build trust between the workforce and leadership. Employees feel heard and valued when they see tangible changes and improvements based on their feedback.

How can People & Culture experts apply surveys?

In conclusion, regular measurement and monitoring of organizational culture, backed by specialized surveys, equip People and Culture professionals with the data and insights they need to cultivate a positive, inclusive, and productive work environment. It's not merely a task—it's foundational to organizational success.

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Measuring and monitoring organizational culture is pivotal for various reasons, and using specialized surveys such as eNPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) provides a nuanced understanding of how employees feel.

Cultural health checks with  the help of surveys

Cultural health checks with the help of surveys

As businesses evolve and adapt to the changing market, the structures they've historically adopted may no longer be optimal. In the modern corporate world, leveraging your team topology and designing an effective org chart are essential strategies for growth and efficiency. In this article, we will discuss key theories of team topologies and how they should align with customer segments, business goals, and underlying technical architecture. This consideration will ensure an optimized organizational structure, org chart, and ultimately, a successful business.

The concept of 'team topology' refers to the way a team or group of teams is organized within a business. It's the blueprint of your org chart and is critical for effective communication, collaboration, and achievement of business goals.

The four major types of team topologies are:

**Stream-Aligned Teams:** Teams that are directly responsible for a particular product or service stream.
**Platform Teams:** Teams that provide internal services to aid stream-aligned teams.
**Enabling Teams:** Teams that support other teams in adopting and advancing new technologies or practices.
**Complicated Subsystem Teams:** Teams that manage complex components of a product or service.

To create an effective organizational structure and an interactive org chart, aligning these team topologies with your customer segments, business goals, and underlying technical architecture is crucial.

Team Topologies: The Backbone of Your Organizational Structure

Tailoring your team topology to your customer segments enables you to better understand and meet your customers' needs. By creating dedicated teams for each customer segment, you can cultivate deeper insight, deliver personalized service, and optimize your org chart to reflect your customer-centric approach.

For example, stream-aligned teams could be organized according to customer segments. This approach ensures that every team understands their customers' needs and can quickly react to market changes.

Aligning Team Topologies with Customer Segments

Your team topology should reflect and support your business goals. For instance, if your goal is to foster innovation, consider implementing enabling teams. These teams can nurture innovation by providing necessary guidance and tools to other teams.

An optimized org chart clearly communicates the connection between team structure and business goals. This clarity can boost team morale, as it allows everyone to understand their role in achieving the company's vision.

Connecting Business Goals with Team Topology

Conway's Law posits that organizations design systems that mirror their own communication structure. Essentially, your team topology could influence your software designs.

In the context of creating an effective organizational structure, you should align your team topology with your technical architecture. If you're developing microservices architecture, for example, each stream-aligned team could be responsible for one microservice.

Aligning your team topology with your technical architecture can increase efficiency, enable faster delivery, and make the process of updating your interactive org chart simpler and more accurate.

Conway's Law and Underlying Technical Architecture

Crafting your team topology and creating an optimized org chart is not a one-time task. As your business goals evolve, so should your organizational structure. Regularly reviewing your team topology and org chart can help you stay agile and responsive in a changing business environment.

In conclusion, a well-crafted team topology that aligns with your customer segments, business goals, and underlying technical architecture is vital for business success. It enables you to create an effective organizational structure, design an interactive org chart, and navigate the complexities of the corporate world with ease.

Remember, your org chart is more than just a diagram. It's a strategic tool that can help your business grow, adapt, and thrive. So, invest time in understanding your team topologies and aligning them with your strategic objectives for maximum benefits.

Crafting Your Team Topology: A Continuous Journey

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In this article, we will discuss key theories of team topologies and how they can help you optimize your organizatioanl structure and ultimately achieving your business goals.

Crafting Your Team Topology: Optimizing Your Org Chart and Organizational Structure

**Nino: Tell me something about yourself. What do you do?**

**Gustav:** I help companies execute their strategies.
The goal is to see the strategies come to life and not being put in a folder and forgotten about.

**What inspires you to work on strategy execution?**

I do this since founders and leadership teams often need an external person to help them lift their eyes from the urgent challenges to be able to work more strategically on challenges which are less urgent but super important.
I have the benefit of not knowing all the details of your current headache, but I still care about you reaching your goals.

**But what is in it for you?**

I love to create successful organizations in which people are happy to contribute. It is fun to win and to learn something along the way. :)

**How do you do what you do?**

I partner up with the leadership team. First, we do an initial analysis of the current situation and a plan going forwards.
After that we keep regular contact to make sure that we take the necessary steps according to the plan and we make sure to find our way back on track if we have started to slip.
My collaborations are best when they are kept long term.

**Who do most enjoy working with?**

I enjoy working with anyone who is open minded and reliable. The companies which wold most benefit from collaborating with me is usually a SaaS company 3-10 years old where growth is slow. Business should be taking off but there is no profit hockey stick. The flatlands is more difficult than expected and the need for role specialization arises. Founders now need to be more Gardener-type leaders and less chess players.  Maybe they have tried OKR but it never “flew”. 

They have tried OKR but it never “flew”

**What does it mean to be a gardener and not a racecar driver?**

A gardener makes sure that the plants have nutrients, water and sun. They don't pull the grass to make it grow faster. A chess player is the one making the decisions and coming up with the answers. In an early stage startup it is great to be a chess player but after a certain point you will be more successful as a gardener. I am supporting the transition since it is not easy for founders to do by themselves.

**What have your clients experienced?**

It is not uncommon that leadership can have identified that the strategy has become a paper exercise which is not used in the organization. The leadership tries to communicate it to the organization but somehow it is not reaching everyone. They are often struggling to follow up on what has been decided and the people in the organization are not engaged to come along on the company journey. 
This all ends up with leadership having to work more operatively that they wish to and they lack time for strategic work. So this lack of strategic work is what can be seen and this is often where I come in. Then my work revolves around solving the root causes for this.

A gardener makes sure that the plants have nutrients, water and sun

**I would like to jump a bit back onto what you mentioned before. The need for role specialization. What do you exactly mean by that?**

This is when the people within the team need to choose focus areas. Choosing focus areas is best done from the view of the skills of each person. Each role needs to be adapted to the goals of the organization and the strengths of the individual. This is where agyleOS is a great tool to support the organizational development of companies since we can get a full picture for better decisions and it is dynamic so that continuous updates are effortless.

**In your experience: When does the need for a strategy for skill and competency management arises in an organization?**

As soon as you are more than two people in the organization. When you have different focus areas you need to communicate and share information with each other. It is less complex in a small organization than in a big one but the question remains: What information are we sharing? 
When we manage the work we do towards the goal, we indirectly also manage the roles which deal with the work. 
So strategy for creating value to the customers goes hand in hand with strategy for managing the skills and competences for creating that value.



Gustav is an organizational and leadership consultant known for his experience in agility and OKRs. You can find him in and around Berlin or in Stockholm occasionally, but in case you just don't run into each other out of the blue - he is always up to connect via [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gustav-nygren-a0248537/) as well. ;) 

Gustav's focus on identifying root causes of problems allows him to support organizations until their strategy truly comes to life. He's not interested in simply creating a PowerPoint presentation that will be tucked away in a drawer and forgotten about - he wants to see real change happen.

In this interview with organizational coach Gustav Nygren we talk about the challenges his clients face around strategy implementation and execution. When and how do OKR fail and how important is a culture of collaboration and communication within an organization

From strategy to execution

In an era marked by rapid change and uncertainty, companies must adapt and evolve to survive. Navigating through the unpredictable waters of the VUCA world demands innovative strategies. At the forefront of these strategies lie skills-based hiring and talent development. This in-depth article delves into the transformative power of adopting a skills-based approach, bridging skills gaps, and engaging in upskilling and reskilling. Through skill management, skill mapping, and skill assessment, organizations can become self-organized entities ready to conquer the challenges of the modern business landscape.



VUCA, an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, encapsulates the challenges businesses face today. To maintain competitiveness, companies must prioritize skills above all else. Skills-based hiring is an approach that focuses on candidates’ skills rather than their educational background or career history. This approach utilizes a skill matrix to identify the key skills needed for each role.

# Advantages of Skills-Based Hiring

1. **Addresses Skills Gaps:** By concentrating on skills, companies can bridge the skills gaps that often exist when relying solely on traditional hiring methods.
2. **Diverse Talent Pool:** Skills-based hiring opens up opportunities for a diverse group of candidates, including those who might not have traditional qualifications but possess critical skills.
3. **Increased Innovation and Agility:** With a diverse set of skills, organizations become more innovative and agile, essential traits for succeeding in a VUCA world.
4. **Cost-Effective:** Reducing turnover and ensuring the right fit from the outset can lead to significant cost savings in recruitment and training.

Introduction to Skills-Based Hiring in the VUCA World

Beyond hiring, it is essential for organizations to invest in their current workforce through upskilling and reskilling. Talent development involves not only skill management but also creating an environment where employees are encouraged to take charge of their learning pathways.

# The Importance of Upskilling and Reskilling

1. **Adapting to Change:** Upskilling and reskilling ensure that employees can adapt to new technologies and methodologies that are constantly emerging.
2. **Employee Retention:** When employees see that their company is invested in their growth, they are more likely to stay, reducing turnover and the associated costs.
3. **Building a Self-Organized Workforce:** Through continuous learning, employees become more self-organized, meaning they can effectively manage themselves and adapt to changes without constant oversight.

# Implementing Talent Development Strategies

1. **Skill Management:** This involves understanding the current skills within the organization and identifying what new skills are needed.
2. **Skill Mapping:** By creating a skill matrix, organizations can map out the skills they have and the skills they need, identifying where upskilling or reskilling is necessary.
3. **Skill Assessment:** Regular skill assessments help in evaluating employee competencies and identifying areas for improvement.
4. **Skill Feedback:** Providing employees with feedback on their skills and performance is essential for continuous improvement.

Talent Development: Upskilling and Reskilling for the Future

# IBM's New Collar Jobs

IBM is an exemplary illustration of an organization that has embraced this harmonized approach. They introduced the concept of “New Collar” jobs which don’t necessarily require a traditional degree but focus on skills. IBM has invested heavily in employee training and also works with educational institutions to ensure that candidates have the necessary skills.

# Siemens’ Employee-Driven Upskilling

Siemens offers a prime example of how empowering employees through upskilling can propel a company forward. By allowing employees to take the initiative in their learning and development, Siemens has built a self-organized workforce that can adapt to the VUCA environment.

# Accenture’s Skills-Based Hiring and Skill Mapping

Accenture has embraced skills-based hiring to build a more diverse and skilled workforce. Through detailed skill mapping, the company has been able to identify and fill skills gaps, ensuring that they have the right talent to meet the challenges of a rapidly evolving marketplace.

Real-Life Success Stories

As the VUCA world continues to challenge the norms of business, skills-based hiring and comprehensive talent development strategies become not only beneficial but essential. Through skills-based approaches, skill mapping, skill assessment, and fostering a culture of upskilling and reskilling, organizations can build a robust, self-organized, and adaptive workforce. This workforce is the linchpin for innovation, agility, and ultimately success in an ever-changing world.

By embracing these strategies, companies can ensure they are well-equipped to navigate the uncertainties and complexities of the modern business landscape. The future belongs to those who recognize the importance of skills and invest in continuous talent development.

A Paradigm Shift for a VUCA World

This in-depth article delves into the transformative power of adopting a skills-based approach, bridging skills gaps, and engaging in upskilling and reskilling. Through skill management, skill mapping, and skill assessment, organizations can become self-organized entities ready to conquer the challenges of the modern business landscape.

Skills-Based Hiring and Talent Development in a VUCA World

In an increasingly complex and competitive business environment, there is an emerging realization that capitalizing on employees' inherent skills is a strategic imperative for organizations. Employers are shifting from traditional job-based structures to the more dynamic, adaptive skills-based approach, which highlights and optimizes the use of existing skills within an organization. Skill mapping, a practice that uncovers the complete spectrum of employee strengths, is fundamental in this transition and promises transformative benefits for both organizational development and individual employee growth.

Skill mapping facilitates the identification of each employee's unique abilities beyond their respective job descriptions. These abilities may include soft skills like communication, leadership, and critical thinking, as well as hard skills like data analysis, technical expertise, or language proficiency. By integrating this approach, organizations can readily adapt to industry changes and disruptions while building a workforce capable of fulfilling a variety of roles.

Skill mapping provides a panoramic view of the organization's skill reservoir, revealing potential skill gaps and surplus. By understanding what skills are abundant and where there might be shortages, businesses can make informed decisions about resource allocation, strategic planning, and risk management. This approach also contributes to better succession planning by identifying internal employees with the skills needed for future leadership roles, thereby promoting continuity and resilience.

A Skills-Based Approach to Organizational Development

On an individual level, skill mapping fuels professional growth and job satisfaction. Employees get an opportunity to highlight their inherent abilities, even those not directly related to their current role. This broad view allows for a more personalized and efficient learning and development strategy, where training and development initiatives can be tailored to enhance the skills employees already possess (upskilling) and develop those they need to improve (reskilling).

Moreover, skill mapping can boost motivation and engagement by showing employees that their unique skills and talents are recognized and valued. It contributes to their career path visibility, showing them how they can advance within the organization based on their skill set.

Employee Development and the Power of Skill Mapping

Leadership stands to gain significantly from this approach. With a skills-based lens, leaders can construct a more agile, resilient, and flexible workforce ready to adapt to evolving market demands. They gain a clearer understanding of the competencies at their disposal, enabling them to delegate tasks more effectively, enhance team collaboration, and improve productivity.

Furthermore, leadership can better identify potential future leaders from their existing talent pool based on the skills these individuals possess. This proactive identification supports succession planning and ensures that the organization's future is in competent hands.

Leadership Benefits from a Skills-Based Approach

The Talent, Recruiting, and People & Culture teams also reap substantial benefits from skill mapping. With a deeper understanding of existing skills and potential skill gaps, they can streamline their recruitment efforts to source candidates that best complement the current workforce. It also enables them to create more accurate job descriptions, ensuring candidates have a clear understanding of the role's requirements.

From a People & Culture perspective, skill mapping empowers the creation of a robust learning and development strategy. It aids in personalizing training programs, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and enhancing employee engagement and retention. By demonstrating commitment to employees' personal and professional growth, organizations can attract and retain top talent, bolstering their competitive advantage.

In conclusion, the skills-based approach, underpinned by comprehensive skill mapping, is a transformative strategy that holds immense potential for both organizational development and employee growth. It creates a win-win situation where organizations become more adaptable and robust, and employees feel valued and empowered. By leveraging the entire spectrum of strengths within their workforce, companies can ensure their continued success in a rapidly evolving business landscape.

Benefits for the Talent, Recruiting and People & Culture Team

This article dives into the power of skill mapping and underlines the benefits of a skills-based approach for both organizational development and individual employee growth.

The Power of Skill Mapping in Organizational Development and Employee Growth

Organizations are significantly shifting how they manage their workforce. The traditional focus on qualifications and certificates is gradually being replaced by a more effective approach: the skills-based approach. This new paradigm emphasizes the skills and competencies of employees, rather than merely their job titles and responsibilities. This article will delve into the merits of adopting a skills-based approach to workforce management and how it can revolutionize the way organizations function.



The need for skills and competencies over job titles and responsibilities

In an era where rapid technological advancements are disrupting industries and creating new ones, organizations must be agile and adaptable to stay competitive. Focusing on job titles and responsibilities may lead to a rigid organizational structure, ill-equipped to deal with the fast-paced nature of the modern workplace. By concentrating on skills and competencies, organizations can foster a more dynamic and flexible workforce, one that is better able to respond to the evolving needs of the organization and the industry it serves.

The need for skills and competencies over job titles and responsibilities

One of the major challenges faced by organizations today is identifying and overcoming skill gaps. The skills-based approach helps organizations identify these gaps by placing the emphasis on individual employee capabilities. This allows for a more targeted approach in addressing skill shortages, by enabling organizations to accurately identify areas where upskilling or reskilling is required. Consequently, this approach helps organizations allocate resources more effectively, ensuring that employees are equipped with the right skills to drive organizational success.

Addressing skill gaps through the skills-based approach

A sophisticated learning and development strategy is essential for the sustainable upskilling and reskilling of a workforce. The skills-based approach to people management facilitates this process by providing organizations with a clear understanding of the skills and competencies required for success. This knowledge enables the development of targeted training programs, which can be tailored to address the specific needs of employees, ultimately fostering a culture of continuous learning and development.

Leveraging learning and development for sustainable upskilling and reskilling

To effectively implement a skills-based approach to workforce management, organizations need the right tools. A central People & Culture platform is essential for visualizing and managing skills in a wider organizational context. This platform enables organizations to efficiently assess and track employee competencies, facilitating the identification of skill gaps and the allocation of resources for upskilling and reskilling initiatives. With the right tool in place, organizations can seamlessly transition to a skills-based structure, fostering a more adaptable and resilient workforce.

The skills-based approach to workforce management offers organizations a dynamic and agile alternative to traditional qualification and certificate-centric models. By focusing on skills and competencies, organizations can address skill gaps, optimize learning and development strategies, and create a more resilient workforce. With the right tools and commitment to change, organizations can successfully transition to a skills-based structure, ensuring long-term success in an ever-changing business landscape.

Transitioning to a skills-based organizational structure with the right tools

Organizations are significantly shifting how they manage their workforce. The traditional focus on qualifications and certificates is gradually being replaced by a more effective approach: the skills-based approach.



Embracing the skills based approach: A game changer for modern organizations

In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations need to be agile, adaptable, and efficient to succeed. One way to achieve these goals is through the implementation of a skills-based organization. This approach to organizational design focuses on identifying and developing employee skills and competencies as the key factor in determining job roles and responsibilities. In this blog post, we will explore the concept of a skills-based organization, why it is appealing to modern org design, some examples of why it makes sense from an organizational development perspective, and how it can help leverage a collaborative culture and new ways of working in the context of new work.



A skills-based organization is a type of organizational design that places a strong emphasis on the skills and competencies of employees. This approach to org design requires the organization to identify the skills that are needed to achieve its strategic objectives and then align job roles and responsibilities with those skills. In a skills-based organization, employees are trained and developed based on the skills they need to succeed in their roles, rather than being restricted to a specific job description or set of tasks.

What exactly is a skills-based organization?

The concept of a skills-based organization is appealing to modern org design for several reasons. It promotes a **culture of continuous learning** and development, which is essential in a rapidly changing business environment. Moreover, it allows organizations to be more agile and adaptable, as employees can be assigned to different roles and responsibilities based on their skills and competencies. By building a skills-based org structure, companies can leverage the diverse skill sets of their employees, creating a more collaborative and inclusive work environment.

Why is that concept so appealing to modern org design?

From an organizational development perspective, there are several reasons why a skills-based organization makes sense. Firstly, it allows organizations to align their **talent development** strategies with their business objectives, ensuring that the organization has the right skills and competencies to achieve its goals. Secondly, it promotes a culture of continuous learning and development, which is essential for attracting and retaining top talent. Thirdly, it enables organizations to **identify skills gaps** and develop targeted training programs to address them, improving overall employee performance and productivity.

Why does it makes sense to consider this approach from an organizational development's perspective?

A skills-based organization can help leverage a collaborative culture and new ways of working in several ways. It encourages employees to share their knowledge and expertise with one another. This fosters a collaborative work environment where employees are more willing to work together to achieve common goals. Organizations will become more flexible and adaptable, allowing employees to work in cross-functional teams and take on new roles and responsibilities based on their skills and competencies. This creates a more dynamic and innovative work environment where employees are empowered to take ownership of their work and contribute to the organization's success.

In conclusion, a skills-based organization is an effective approach to organizational design that focuses on identifying and developing employee skills and competencies. It promotes a collaborative culture, allows organizations to be more agile and adaptable and enables organizations to leverage the diverse skill sets of their employees. Thus, organizations can derive sophisticated talent management strategies that align with the business objectives. Ultimately, it is possible to build a sustainable culture and a truly people-centric organization.

How does a skills-based organization can help leveraging a collaborative culture and new ways of working in the context of new work?

In this blog post, we will explore the concept of a skills-based organization, why it is appealing to modern org design. This approach to organizational design focuses on identifying and developing employee skills and competencies as the key factor in determining job roles and responsibilities.

Skills-based Org Design

Organizational charts have been a staple in the corporate world for a long time. They have served as a visual representation of a company’s hierarchy, highlighting the various roles, responsibilities, and relationships within the organization. However, as the world has evolved, so too have the needs of organizations. Today’s businesses require a more flexible, adaptable, and collaborative approach to organizational design. Enter the interactive org chart.

What are Interactive Org Charts?

An interactive org chart is a digital tool that allows organizations to visualize their structure and hierarchy in a dynamic, interactive format. Unlike traditional organizational charts, which are often static and hierarchical, interactive org charts allow for a more fluid and adaptable approach to organizational design.
Interactive org charts offer a range of features and functionalities that go beyond those of traditional org charts. They allow for real-time updates, interactive communication, and collaboration across teams and departments, and can be customized to fit the specific needs of an organization.

Modern and forward-thinking organizations can leverage interactive org charts in a number of ways. Here are a few examples:

Interactive org charts can be used to facilitate communication and collaboration within and between teams. By providing a clear, visual representation of the organization’s structure, interactive org charts can help team members better understand their roles and responsibilities, as well as the roles and responsibilities of their colleagues. Moreover, interactive org charts are an ideal medium to share information, documents, and other resources with team members, making it easier for everyone to stay on the same page and work together more effectively.

Facilitate Communication and Collaboration

Interactive org charts can also be used to increase transparency and accountability within an organization. By providing a clear view of the organization’s structure and hierarchy, interactive org charts can help to ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to decision-making, resource allocation, and other key organizational processes. Through them it is possible to track progress, set goals, and measure performance, allowing organizations to hold themselves and their employees accountable for their actions and outcomes.

Increase Transparency and Accountability

By providing a clear view of the organization’s structure and hierarchy, interactive org charts can help to streamline processes and workflows, reducing the time and effort required to complete tasks. It is easier to identify bottlenecks and other areas of inefficiency, allowing organizations to make targeted improvements and optimizations that can boost productivity and performance.

Now that we’ve explored some of the ways that modern organizations can leverage interactive org charts, let’s take a closer look at some of the key features and functionalities that make these tools so powerful.

[Learn more about interactive Org Charts in agyleOS](/interactive-org-charts)

Improve Efficiency and Productivity

One of the key features of interactive org charts is real-time updates. Unlike traditional org charts, which are often static and inflexible, interactive org charts can be updated in real-time, allowing organizations to keep pace with changes in their structure, hierarchy, and personnel.
This can be especially useful in fast-paced, dynamic environments, where roles and responsibilities may be constantly evolving. With an interactive org chart, teams can stay up-to-date on changes as they happen, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.

Real-time Updates

Unlike traditional org charts, which are often rigid and standardized, interactive org charts can be customized to fit the specific needs and preferences of an organization. This can include customizing the layout and design of the chart, as well as the information and data that is included. For example, an interactive org chart could include not just names and titles but also skills, competences and other relevant details that can help team members collaborate more effectively. Customization can also allow organizations to tailor their org charts to specific audiences, such as investors or stakeholders. By including relevant information and data, interactive org charts can help to communicate the organization’s structure, strategy, and goals more clearly and effectively.

Customization

Interactive org charts can also include data visualization features that allow organizations to analyze and understand their structure and performance. This may include business KPIs or other data like cultural pulse checks of the individual teams gathered through surveys. This can help to highlight trends, patterns, and other key insights. By visualizing data in this way, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of their structure and hierarchy, as well as identify areas for improvement and optimization. This can ultimately lead to better decision-making and more efficient operations.

Data Visualization

In this post we discuss how modern organizations can leverage interactive org charts to support organizational design.

Interactive Org Charts: A New Age of Organizational Design

*A strong feedback culture is a good indicator for a healthy company culture. In this article we dive a bit deeper into the 360 degree feedback approach, it's challenges and what to do with it.*

A strong feedback culture is a good indicator for a healthy company culture. Being able to give and receive feedback - even or better said especially constructive one - is a key skill for every employee.

Especially for leaders it is undeniably important not only to be a good sender but also receiver of feedback in order to work upon it and improve their behavior and approach. Ultimately, leader should be the one’s acting as role models and create an environment where people are encouraged and feel motivated to give feedback.

Even though, many companies are shifting or have already shifted their mindset and are doing numerous feedback workshops and motivate their employees to share feedback, in this blog post we want to shed some light on the 360 degree feedback. Moreover, we want to present another approach to a healthy feedback culture.

The 360 degree feedback approach basically describes the methodology of collecting feedback about oneself from different perspectives. These perspectives can cover spectrum from their managers over to colleagues and peers over to customers to get the full view (360 degree) about one’s performance.

To analyze trends and areas of strengths and weaknesses, these feedbacks are typically collected over a certain period of time - e.g. in 6 months intervals - and afterwards reviewed with one’s direct reports/managers. These reviews of the 360 degree feedback rounds are often used as a basis for performance assessments for promotions. The idea behind the 360 degree feedback is to have the most objective and diverse feedback as possible.

360 Degree Feedback

First and foremost, it is more important to put the effort on enabling people to give and receive feedback. It’s a matter of the right company culture and mindset. Transparency and willingness to improve are things that the leadership should live and be role models in. Otherwise, the rest of the employees will not feel encouraged to give open feedback as well.

Moreover, as it is often tightly woven into the promotional system and salaries, many step back from really giving open feedback as they fear the impact on their careers.

Everyone has their own personality and personal history. We are all deeply influenced by how we grew up. Implementing and starting off an open feedback culture from one day to the other is almost impossible, as there will always be people among us that are not used to give and receive feedback that is afterwards reviewed with their managers and used as a basis for promotions. The challenge explained above will always remain and some people will always avoid giving open feedback, especially to their managers, because of the fear on the impact on their career.

Furthermore, the 360 degree feedback is very time-consuming and reality shows that after a first enthusiasm, people - both team members and managers - are using walk-arounds and do everything to reduce the intensity of the processes. Most feedback tools are too complex and require writing a lot in order to be useful. This added work results in pressure and reduced satisfaction with the formal feedback approach - even though it is asynchronous.

The challenges

Our market research shows that many companies are applying the 360 degree feedback system, but mostly lean on tools that are not appropriate for their actual needs and too hierarchical in their approach.

In fact, the way how 360 degree feedback processes are implemented, mostly just represent what was in place before and only give the still maintained hierarchical and top-down culture an “agile” touch.

Even though the basic idea of this feedback system is positive and intended to improve prevailing structures, most tools do not offer capabilities for a true mindset shift.

We believe that feedback is not only there to track personal development and link the outcomes of the reviews to promotions and salary adjustments. In the ende, it really comes down to improving oneself and to grow together.

Promotions and salary increases can still be results of the reviews but should not stay in the focus of the entire approach.

So what?

A strong feedback culture is a good indicator for a healthy company culture. In this article we dive a bit deeper into the 360 degree feedback approach, it's challenges and what to do with it.

The struggle with feedback

The agile unFIX Model is a framework for agile management developed by Jurgen Appelo, a management consultant and author known for his work on agile leadership and especially his book "Management 3.0". This model represents a significant evolution of traditional agile principles, and offers a unique approach to managing organizations in a rapidly changing business environment.

unFIX is based on the idea that organizations should be flexible and adaptable. It emphasizes the importance of creating a culture of continuous improvement, and encourages organizations to be open to change and experimentation.

The model is based on six core principles:

Purpose: Organizations should have a clear purpose or mission that guides their actions.
Value: The focus should be on creating value for customers and stakeholders.
Competence: Employees should be empowered to develop their skills and expertise.
Collaboration: Teams should work together and share information in order to achieve their goals.
Trust: Organizations should foster a culture of trust and transparency.
Improvement: Continuous improvement should be encouraged and supported.
One of the most innovative aspects of the Agile Unfixed Model is its focus on empowering employees and creating a positive work environment. Appelo believes that organizations should strive to create an environment where employees feel valued, trusted, and supported in their efforts to develop their skills and expertise. This can help to create a more collaborative and innovative culture, and can lead to better outcomes for both the organization and its customers.

A successful implementation of the Agile Unfixed Model requires a significant shift in mindset and culture. Organizations need to be open to change and to embrace a culture of continuous improvement. This can be challenging, as it requires a willingness to take risks and to experiment with new ideas. However, the potential rewards are significant, as it can lead to more adaptable, innovative, and successful organizations.

In the unFIX model organizations are divided into small, self-organizing teams called "crews". These crews are responsible for the day-to-day work of the organization.

Each crew is led by a facilitator responsible for helping the crew to stay focused and to resolve any issues that may arise. The facilitator also works with other facilitators and managers to ensure that the organization is aligned with its overall purpose and goals.

Crews are designed to be flexible and adaptable, and are able to respond quickly to changes in the business environment. They are empowered to make decisions and take ownership of their work, and are encouraged to be innovative and to continuously improve their processes.

The use of crews is one of the key principles of unFIX Model, and is designed to help organizations to be more agile and adaptable. By breaking the organization into small, self-organizing teams, it is easier to make changes and to respond to new challenges and opportunities.

Synonyms of the crews in other agile frameworks are teams, squads, pods and cells.

The Crew

The concept of a "base" refers to a set of shared resources and support functions that are available to all teams, or "crews". A typical base size ranges between one team to a few hundred people and it inherits all required skills to create products and to act as an independent business unit.

There are three main types of base functions in unFIX Model:

Core base functions: These are the essential support functions that are necessary for the organization to operate, such as finance, HR, and legal.
Enabling base functions: These are functions that support and enable the work of the crews, such as IT and marketing.
Innovation base functions: These are functions that are focused on innovation and continuous improvement, such as research and development.
These base functions can be organized in different ways depending on the needs and goals of the organization. For example, the base functions may be centralized, with all of the functions being managed and coordinated by a single team or department. Alternatively, the base functions may be decentralized, with each function being managed independently by a separate team or department.

Synonyms of the bases in other agile frameworks are business units, clans or tribes.

The Base

The concept of "turf" refers to the area of responsibility or authority (e.g. a codebase or product area) of a group of people. Each crew or individual has their own turf, which is defined by the goals and objectives that they are responsible for achieving.

The concept of turf is closely tied to the concept of "boundaries", which are the limits or constraints that define the turf of a particular team or individual. Turf and boundaries are important in the Agile Unfixed Model because they help to ensure that teams and individuals have the autonomy and independence they need to do their work effectively.

At the same time, it is important for teams and individuals to be aware of and respect the turf of others, and to work together to achieve common goals. This can help to foster collaboration and cooperation, and can lead to better outcomes for the organization as a whole.

The Turf

As the unFIX model offers a high degree of adaptivity and flexibility to organizations, it is crucial to keep the big picture in mind and have a sophisticated overview about the organizational structure and value streams.

Assessing progress and performance in such a complex and dynamic model easily becomes a big challenge. To keep up these advantages of the unFIX model, the right tooling for measuring the organizational health - on the cultural, technical and business level - is required.

With agyleOS it is possible to visualize the unFIX model tailored to any organizational need and keep track of the overall business goals and team performances. Our interactive org chart lives with your organizational development and it is easier than ever before to adapt to any changes in the structure in real-time. E.g. a dynamic reteaming of people responsible for a specific turf can be easily visualized and impacts on the speed of the affected crews can be directly forecasted by the needed right insights in the org chart.

Moreover, you can map relevant KPIs on crew, base and organization level and derive concrete action points out of the insights.

agyleOS is easily customizable to your needs and makes it the ideal companion for your unFIX journey.

Unleash your full potential applying the unFIX Model with agyleOS

An introduction to the unFIX model as a novel agile framework that builds on the concepts of previous models and seeks to combine strengths and aspects of several. agyleOS is the ideal platform to unleash your full potential when applying unFIX.

The unFIX Model

In the early 2010s, the company began to embrace an agile approach to software development. This approach is based on the Agile Manifesto, a set of principles for software development that emphasizes flexibility, rapid iteration, and collaboration between cross-functional teams. In 2011, Spotify published a blog post about its use of agile methods, which attracted a lot of attention from other companies that were interested in adopting agile practices.

In the following years, Spotify continued to share its experiences with agile development through blog posts, conference presentations, and case studies and over time the Spotify agile framework became a highly popular way of adapting agile methodologies.

One key aspect of the Spotify agile framework is the use of cross-functional teams, known as "squads," which are responsible for developing and maintaining a specific feature or product. These squads are self-organizing and empowered to make decisions about their own work, which allows them to move quickly and respond to changing business needs.

Another important aspect of the Spotify agile framework is the use of "tribes," which are groups of squads that work on related areas of the business. Tribes provide a level of coordination and alignment between squads, while still allowing them to maintain their autonomy and flexibility.

The Spotify agile framework focuses on empowering teams to make autonomous decisions and take ownership of their work. This helps to foster a culture of innovation and creativity, as well as encourage team members to take initiative and drive progress.

Moreover, it emphasizes on continuous experimentation and learning. This means that teams are encouraged to try out new ideas and approaches, and to learn from their successes and failures. This helps teams to stay agile and adaptable, and to continuously improve their processes and products.

Empowering teams to make autonomous decisions

However, the Spotify agile framework is not without its weaknesses. One potential weakness is that it can be challenging to implement in larger organizations, where there may be more bureaucracy and hierarchy. Additionally, the framework relies on strong communication and collaboration between teams, which can be difficult to achieve if team members are not co-located or if there are language or cultural barriers.

One of the key factors in being successful with the Spotify agile framework is having the right tooling in place. This includes tools for project management, communication, and collaboration, as well as tools for tracking progress and measuring success. Without the right tooling, it can be difficult for teams to effectively manage their work and stay aligned with company goals.

In addition to the right tooling, it is also important to have the right visualization of your organizational structure in order to be successful with the Spotify agile framework. This includes having clear roles and responsibilities for team members, as well as establishing strong communication channels between teams. By visualizing the structure of your organization in this way, you can better understand how work flows through the organization and identify any bottlenecks or areas for improvement.

While it has its strengths and weaknesses, by implementing the right tooling and visualization of your organizational structure, you can increase your chances of success with this framework.



One of the key factors in being successful with the Spotify agile framework is having the right tooling in place

The Spotify agile framework is a highly popular and effective way for organizations to approach product development and management. Still there are also challenges attached to its application in scaled environments. This article elaborates them and how agyleOS can support you in the implementation of the Spotify model.

The Spotify Model

*A conversation with Dr. Barton Friedland, Principal Advisory Consultant at ThoughtWorks, about agile organizations and leadership, and the challenges and opportunities that come along with it.
*


**Nino: How would you explain agility in 1-2 sentences to someone who has no idea and no contact with agility?**

Barton: My answer would be that agility is about leveraging feedback loops, and taking into account information that we might not normally pay attention to, so that at the end of those feedback loops, we can reflect and hopefully gain some insights about how we might change our behaviour, how we might try something different, how we might then measurably improve the outputs and outcomes of our work.

**When did you first get in touch with agility?**

I lived in San Francisco, in the early 2000s. And I first came across the concept of agile or agility shortly after the Agile Manifesto was signed. A colleague of mine was the Vice- President of delivery at the gap — Pat Reed — and she was bringing agile to the gap. At that time, there were no courses in agile or agility. There were some books that preceded the Agile Manifesto, like Kent Beck's Extreme Programming, or Poppendieck's book on applying lean principles to software development, but agile as a buzzword didn't exist yet. So at that time, I came into contact with it through human beings who were actually practising the idea and, and showed me what they meant by agility.

I think it's also important to take into account that the people who signed the Agile Manifesto came from very different methodological approaches and perspectives. As far as I understand, the Agile Manifesto was never meant to sbe prescriptive, but rather is the distillation of what the people who signed it felt they had in common.

As an archetypal activity, the Manifesto still stands today as something we can do with with our stakeholders to look at what do we have in common in order to identify the steps we should be taking to go forward.

**How is organizational agility measured?**

I can only give you my opinion here. I think that one place to start looking is the cadence of processes. If, for example, you are releasing software every six months, perhaps you could release it every three months. If, for example, your budgeting process is annual and wrapped up with strategy, perhaps you could do it quarterly.

I think the idea underlying agile is that as the context or the environment changes, we want our processes to keep up. And therefore we may need to run some processes in a more lightweight and a faster cadence than we are used to. So I think that might be one of the ways to measure agility.

I think you can also look at actual outcomes that are satisfying customer needs. It could certainly be that you're able to satisfy customer needs without putting any Agile processes into place. But if someone does that sustainably I'd be very interested to hear about it!

**Is agility a leadership competency?**

I think the underlying mindset that enables agility — what Carol Dweck calls adaptive mindset, or learning mindset — is very much a leadership competency. And in fact, Pat Reed, who I mentioned earlier, along with Agile signatory Jim Highsmith established in the mid 2000s a course at Berkeley University in California, specifically on this topic, agile leadership, exploring how we apply Agile principles to leadership which still runs to this day.

We also see in the leadership literature as well that, from the beginning of the 20th century, when conceptions of leadership were very much so-called "Great man" theories that there has been an evolution in the way we think about leadership.

We've seen a lot of new forms of leadership emerge through research in the last century, such as "empathetic" leadership or "empowering" leadership, or "servant" leadership. And I think all of these conceptions speak to an acknowledgement that leadership is not just about telling people what to do, or giving commands or controlling things, but also about how one might support a team so that they can become a high-performing team, a team that's able to deliver breakthrough results.

I think there's a lot there, and many other authors have had much more to say on this topic. I'd recommend Jim Highsmith's book on Adaptive Ladership.

There has been an evolution in the way we think about leadership

**What causes agile to fail?**

That's an interesting question. I don't think agile fails. I think what happens is agile mindsets are sometimes displaced by other mindsets, and we are all human.

For example, I don't experience myself as always being agile, I think sometimes I fall back to patterns and behaviour of trying to protect myself or responding in a defensive manner. When the underlying mindset of empowering people and really looking for new forms of information actively and applying feedback loops and feedback itself, as an active process, become dormant it's very easy for our habits of behaviour to take over the environment.

It's important to realize that improving our environment, adapting our environment takes work, and it's never done. In summary, I don't think that agile does fail - it always waits for us to come back to it and continue the work that needs to be done to improve the environment we live in.

**What is the required mindset in an organization in order to be agile?**

I think I've covered that to some degree. I think the best explanation of that is Carol Dweck's work on adaptive mindset which reminds us that we need to be open to change. We see this kind of notion of adaptive versus fixed mindset in other formulations by the way, like Douglas McGregor and his work from MIT in the 1950s and 60s, the so-called Theory X and Theory Y views of management, which represent the assumptions that different kinds of managers bring with them. I think that Theory X and Theory Y could also be said to be an early form of the mindset equation.

Here, Theory Y would be more the Agile view, where Theory X takes a more defensive posture. It's not that one is better than the other - I think, again, we're all human. And it's not about adopting the so-called perfect mindset and having a perfect world.

I think challenge and alignment and ongoing learning are part of the course of living our lives - and we have a choice of how we approach those changes. Agile speaks more to "how do we adapt actively proactively" to those changes?

I don't think that agile does fail - it always waits for us to come back to it and continue the work that needs to be done to improve the environment we live in.

**What has changed in the area of agility in recent years?**

Well, there's always change and I could pick lots of things because Agile has been around since around 2000. I could talk about many of the innovations that ThoughtWorks has brought to the market in terms of inventing continuous delivery, or the invention of microservices, both of which were inspired and driven by a dogged commitment to Agile Principles and a focus on solving client problems.

I would also say that another aspect that has changed more generally is the commercialisation of the idea of agile - that one can take agile courses, get agile certifications as if there is a single body on such matters.

I think going back to what I said earlier about the purpose of the Agile Manifesto. It is not to prescribe methodologies, but rather to capture what was common about a range of varying approaches.

I think because of the commercialisation of agile, it's also raised the question for many people about whether or not agile is truly effective, because of course, with different versions of agile, competing for being the "real" Agile, it becomes a little bit more difficult for people to identify whether the thing that they're doing called Agile is actually working or not. But I think that's normal in the evolution of a concept.

Jim Highsmith, who was one of the original signatories has shared with me his view that maybe we need to come up with a different name, or it needs to be reborn in a different way. We'll see.

**Can you summarize one of your major take-aways so far with regards to common challenges organizations face when they are in a change management process?**

The biggest takeaway is that whatever change management process we are in, it's a change process that will continue to change always continues. And this is really one of the strengths of agile approaches, the idea that we build habits and practices into our work into our everyday so that they become business-as-usual or BAU. In this way, change management is something that we can begin to do more and more naturally.

Some organisations may need to set up formal change management programmes to put in place an initial set of changes. But we very much encourage the idea that once you are on your journey, to begin to normalise these change management behaviours and make them part of our everyday life so that we can 1) make better decisions and these can be 2) more distributed across the organisation and 3) we empower teams to be more proactive about the changes hey see coming before them and 4) give them the tools to experiment and measure in ways that reduce the risk of those changes - essentially building the maturity of the organization and its capabilities.

Maybe we need to come up with a different name, or it needs to be reborn in a different way. We'll see.

**About Barton Friedland:**

As a digital pioneer at both Apple and NeXT Computer, Barton has worked with and implemented leading-edge technologies for over 30 years. He is currently a Principal Advisory Consultant at Thoughtworks based in Berlin, Germany where he engages at a strategic level with senior leadership to support a deeper understanding of how to transform their organisations by taking better advantage of the benefits technology brings.

*A conversation with Dr. Barton Friedland, Principal Advisory Consultant at ThoughtWorks, about agile organizations and leadership, and the challenges and opportunities that come along with it.*

Nino Chalati

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