Most weeks I have a few people ask me organisation design questions. This week I had four and here I'm responding to the one from Alex:
I wondered whether you might be able to suggest any org design courses which may be suitable for me. I am keen to get some insight about any intermediate organisation design courses on the market which do design in an organisation development way.
Alex is already working in an organisation design/development role and isn't a complete beginner. A lot of people are in her position – looking to consolidate and develop beyond foundational skills. I guess in the CIPD's Organisation Design Profession Map Alex is looking to become a Band 3 or 4.
The interesting thing about Alex's question is the point about organisation design in an organisation development way. My organisation design orientation is towards organisation development – but what does that mean? A few years ago I came across a useful discussion on this from Fred Nickols of Distance Consulting. He developed a typology that explains Organisation Development (OD) practitioners as 'hard' or 'soft'. Soft OD refers to the classic tools: teambuilding, group facilitation, conflict management, etc. Hard OD refers to the socio-technical stream of OD, including organizational design, process design and improvement, work design and redesign, and large-scale change management. He also categorises them into internal and external consultants. He's now developed his thinking through the addition of another distinction 'that between OD practitioners who focus on people and those who focus on the organization', pointing out that there's no one best type. You can see the updated typology here .