I'm repeatedly asked where should Organisation Design sit as an organisational function? The question means where, functionally, should the skills and attributes of OD report. It's a question I tackle in my – about to be revised – book Organisation Design: Engaging with Change. In it (2014), I said:
Although 'organization design' is often seen as vested in HR, and certainly required as an HR competence – it figures on the CIPDs HR Profession Map a new design is typically initiated and driven by the business. HR, with its focus being primarily on the workforce, is only one of the parties that enable new organization design success. Other support service areas, among them IT, finance, facilities, and communications are also typically tagged as enablers of new design success, and often work alongside the business and HR in planning and implementing a (re)design piece of work. ...
Where, then, should the 'point' people with internal expertise to do the detailed technical work required to design and then keep an organization well designed be situated in an organization? Are they best placed as part of an HR function, part of a strategy department, as an independent unit reporting to a COO or CEO, or somewhere else?
The current predominant view seems to be that organization design skills are part of an HR function's services to clients and thus sit in HR.