Organizational structures: A scenario that calls for adaptations

There is a reason why everyone is looking for long-awaited efficiency and an organizational structure that makes this possible. This is one of the words that have most echoed in a market scenario that requires lean investments to do "more with less."

Technology is increasingly becoming a core part of companies' business, but the effective implementation of new solutions requires alignment between the responsibilities and the strategic and individual objectives of the different areas, in addition to having to interact directly with people, who are the main "drivers" of these contexts. 

Thus, if the focus is directed only to the adoption of tools, frameworks, or automation solutions, while the cultural and organizational changes capable of keeping up with the news are pushed aside, the advances are blocked on one side because of the lag on the other.

Structures and topologies are built around an enterprise scenario. If the scenario changes, they also change. Otherwise, structural inefficiencies arise, one of the main obstacles for companies during digital transformation.

Inappropriate investments and consequences

When we look at the technology area in the context of the organizational structure, whether technology is at the core of the business or in a scenario of high demand for modern tools in support operations (such as integrated pipelines and similar), a series of corporate problems that are so common that they are no longer a surprise.

An example? Companies that highly invest in different technological aspects do not generate results in the same proportion. When they dedicate resources to structures that are not being used to their full potential, they identify underperformance. Then, when questioned about the underperformance, the teams defend their performances by making statements like the following examples.

• "Everyone is super busy and has no space to do anything different." 
• "One of the main problems is that there are too many initiatives in parallel."
• "The team has grown a lot in recent years." 
• "We deliver a lot, but it seems that no one sees the result."
• "We've lost a lot of people, and some are at risk of developing burnout." 
• "Most of my day is focused on alignment schedules and unproductive meetings."

There is no right answer to solving the problems that hamper the achievement of digital efficiency, but there are common lessons and scenarios that we can build on to make progress.

Structures and topologies are built around scenarios

If at a given time, prioritizing bulky deliveries made by a large team acting in a centralized way made sense for the organization, it also made sense that operations, in addition to those related to the "hands-on" of creating a product (involving development and design teams), to be centralized. In this case, a single production line would perfectly align with a post-production line.

It turns out that, currently, independent deployments are crucial to the success of companies in a context that requires constant acceleration at all levels of operation. Unfortunately, many organizations are concerned with diversifying their Development and Design teams, but they forget something essential: also dilute the other operations. 

The damages of this restricted configuration do not take long to appear, such as:

• Demands that seem too big for a given team. 
• Bottlenecks in workflows.
• Confusion about new decisions taken without the knowledge of those involved who will perform such tasks.
• Teams led in multiple directions, which ends up compromising productivity.
• Constant surprises, that is, fewer alignments.
• Sudden changes in structure from time to time.
• Lack of engagement.

Therefore, adapting the structure becomes essential for the maintenance and expansion of the business.

Four key types of teams to accelerate

Considering the current market scenario, in which companies need to meet the expectations and needs of customers with high speed to achieve digital efficiency, as well as follow changes in a non-linear way, the teams with certain characteristics and attributions make all the difference.

Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton, Manuel Pais, and Ruth Malan also provides valuable tips on the subject. The authors describe four types of teams that are fundamental in achieving digital efficiency, which are presented below.

• Stream-aligned teams: focus on a single workflow and tend to be very close to the customer and adopt agile methodologies.
• Enabling teams: help the flow-aligned team to overcome obstacles and focus on research and testing.
• Complicated subsystem teams: build and maintain the part of a system that requires specific skills and knowledge.
• Platform teams: collaborate with flow-aligned teams and build platforms incrementally, focusing on usability and working on supporting and maintaining this system.

The support they provide to each other while there is clarity of actions (highly independent) helps to mitigate, and even eliminate, the damage of restricted configurations listed throughout this article. Thus, it ensures continuous value delivery.

Now that I've talked about the importance of adaptable structures and topologies created around the current scenario, prepared for new periods, and designed now, but considering the future, I leave one final tip.

CI&T, in a recently published e-book, focuses on the principles of digital efficiency, and you can access the material for free through this link. Many people are in search of this dream, and I hope that, with the reflections and suggestions in this text, you will get closer to realizing it.

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