Making The Most of Your Team

Making the Most
of Your Team
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Best Practice
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Architects Continuing Education Systems. Credit earned on
completion of this program will be reported to CES Records for AIA
members. Certificates of Completion for non-AIA members are
available on request.
This program is registered with the AIA/CES for continuing

professional education. As such, it does not include content that
may be deemed or construed to be an approval or endorsement by
the AIA of any material of construction or any method or manner of
handling, using distributing, or dealing in any material or product.
Questions related to specific materials, methods, and services will
be addressed at the conclusion of this presentation.
© 2009 ZweigWhite Executive Education & Management Training – All Rights Reserved 2

Organization Structure
Why care about the organization’s structure?

• Our work depends entirely on our people, so our
organizational structure defines our operational model
• An effective organizational structures contributes to our
successfully accomplishing both our most audacious
strategic goals and rote business functions
• It should express our firm’s culture, enable
communications, assist in the flow of information, and
promote accountability

Strategy and Structure
Strategy and Structure

Change in strategy
requires a change in
structure Structural
Reorientation
Structure dictates how

objectives & policies are
Structure dictates established
resource allocation
• Structural reorientation will not make a bad strategy good or elevate

poor leaders and managers to a level required for success.
• Strategies should be achievable. If the strategy requires massive or
complicated organizational changes, that strategy should be
reconsidered.

Common Organizational Concerns
These issues often inspire firms to reorganize:

• Role confusion
• Multiple or conflicting roles
• Locus of control and accountability
• Concentration of power
• Match between size and type
• Role and leadership development
• Expediency vs. strategy
• Scalability and sustainability

Enhancing Organizational Clarity
• Roles and responsibilities

• Individual and team accountability
• Interactions and interrelations
• How things get done
• Communications linkages
• Flow of information
• Career path options and opportunities

Guiding Principles
• It’s better to be organized than not

• It’s better to have a right one than a wrong one
• Structures can and should change, evolve
• What do clients see, believe, want, care about?
• There’s not just one right answer
• Structure helps, but doesn’t solve, all the firm’s
problems… In fact, all structures create problems

“How do I get a copy of the org chart?”
• It’s a secret.
• Why do you need it?
• It’s not written down.
• We have one….we do?
• It just causes trouble.
• I really hate this stuff.

Common A/E Organization Types
• Geographic
• Functional
• Studio
• Client/Market
• Matrix
• Hybrid

Geographic
Executive Leadership
Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

New York New Jersey Asia
Project Manager Project Manager
• Creates very clearly defined organizational boundaries and

reinforces those boundaries in the most effective way possible
• Can generate internal competition and cultural dissonance
• Inhibits the movement of expertise across the firm, can prove
problematic if all locations do not provide all services
• Clients might see firm as smaller if only familiar with one location

Functional
Vice President Vice President Vice President

Architecture Interior Design Planning
• Most common form of professional organization, highest comfort

level for design professionals
• Groups professionals together maximizing opportunities for
professional development
• Focuses market on offerings of single services
• Inhibits workflow across functions

Studio
Executive
Leadership
Studio Leader Studio Leader Studio Leader
Director Director Director Director

Design Planning Production Interiors
• Creates dynamic, multidisciplinary teams that can respond to

diverse challenges
• Clients do not see consistent dedication to project types, markets, or
disciplines
• Constant shifts in project type can create management challenges
with regard to scheduling and assigning resources

Client/Market Organization

Residential Development Commercial Development Institutional
• Presents a clear message to the marketplace, defining clients

served
• Promotes the development of client expertise throughout the
organization
• Makes some professionals uncomfortable as working for similar
clients can inhibit the development of technical breadth

Matrix Organization
Vice President Vice President

Operations Civil Engineering
Project Manager Project Manager Senior Civil Senior Civil

Residential Commercial Engineer Engineer
• Overlays one organization (usually Market/Client or Geographic)

onto a Functional organization
• Provides for professionals’ remaining in groups while promoting
focused project management
• Solves some of the challenges inherent in the Functional
organization at the expense of accountability

Hybrid Organization
Executive
Leadership
Managing Director Managing Director

Managing Director Managing Director
Residential Commercial
Institutional Survey
Development Development
Director
Director Director Director Director
Museums and
Jordan Egypt UAE and Asia Schools
Higher Ed
• Organizes units according to what works best for given markets,

leverage models, and professional behaviors
• Captures some strengths of several of the models, but also
weaknesses
• Lack of a consistent model can create cultural challenges and even
management issues

Ease of Workflow
Ideal Workflow
Typical Workflow
Dysfunctional Workflow

Market Clarity
Client Perspective
• Work consistently with the same leaders and similar
teams
• Understand how to navigate the firm
• Know what the firm offers
• Experience consistency
Internal Perspective
• Teams develop client expertise
• Services associated with client needs
• Different strengths deployed to serve different clients

Cultural Clarity
Structure Supports:
• The mission of the firm
• Characteristics that the firm values
• Appropriately steep (or gentle) vertical relationships –
the kind of hierarchy the firm wants
• Movement up through the levels of the firm
• Roles that team members understand and respect

Managerial Clarity
Communication
Intelligence
• Works in all directions
• Team members know where
they need to go to get
information they need
• Information from clients and
Collaboration from managers reaches team
members to facilitate
Dissemination
implementation
• Managers can make decisions
based on reliable data

Managerial Clarity
Chains of Responsibility and
Accountable to…
Accountability: Principals
• Principals: Responsible for Firm,
accountable to clients and
stakeholders
• Senior Managers: Responsible for Senior
Others and becoming responsible Managers
for Firm
• Managers: Responsible for Self
Responsible for…
and becoming responsible for
Managers
Others
• Team Members: Becoming
responsible for Self
Team
Members

Financial Clarity
• Facilitates managerial accounting practices (e.g.

assignment of costs and revenues to units, allocation of
overhead)
• Necessitates little in the way of internal transfers of funds
• Creates economically sound units… Ones based on the
realities of business
• Aligns financial incentives with cultural and managerial
connections

Evaluating the Models
Ease of Market Cultural Managerial Financial

Structure
Workflow Clarity Clarity Clarity Clarity
Geographic ? - ? ++ ++
Functional - - ++ - --
Project ++ - ? -- +
Client/
Market
+ ++ - ++ ++
Matrix ? - + - -
Hybrid + - -- + +

Centralized Corporate Functions
Executive
Leadership
Managing Director Managing Director Vice President

Vice President
Residential Commercial Finance and
Marketing
Development Development Administration
Director
Director Director Director Director Director
Information
Los Angeles San Francisco Pacific NW Accounting Human Resources
Technology
• Coexists as a separate organization

• Marketing typically reports to Executive Leadership
• Other Corporate Functions usually grouped into an administrative
unit
• As finding and retaining exceptional team members becomes more
of a priority, more HR units report directly to executive leadership

Distributed Corporate Functions
Executive
Leadership

West Palm Orlando Tampa
Office Manager Project Manager Project Manager
• Most common in Geographic organizations

• Exchanges high level competence and experience for more support
level team members
• Depends heavily on the functional capabilities of design
professionals within the organization

Choosing an Appropriate Structure
• So what is the answer? What is the right one?
For most AE firms, we recommend the Market/Client

structure…
• Why? It scores high in both Market Clarity and Ease of
Workflow
All organization structures create challenges!

Market Focused Organization
• Focused on delivering expertise and experience to

specific types of clients
• Better understanding of the client industries, strategies,
business context
• Operational improvement as teams mature
• Highlights focus, even at expense of efficiency or
discipline consistency
• Key to differentiation in a mature industry context
Organizational Levels
Shareholders
Board of Directors
Operations Team
(Functions/Geographies/Projects/Markets)

Each Level Has a Mission
• Shareholders – Lead the firm by electing a Board of

Directors
• Board of Directors – Hire/Fire Executive Leadership, set
compensation for Executive Leadership, address issues
of ownership (serve as stewards for the Shareholders)
• Executive Leadership – Develop and execute long term
and annual strategies, lead and manage the Operations
Team
• Operations Team – Accomplish day to day activities

Not Just Organizing People
• Strategy and planning

• Core systems and processes
• Project management/operations
• Communications architecture
• Information and knowledge
• Culture

Changing (Improving) the Structure
• Strategy comes first, then structure.

• Be realistic about the effort and time (6-12 months)
required.
• Obtain broad stakeholder input.
• Create the structure first, w/o filling in the boxes.
• Realize there will be winners and losers.
• Monitor re-evaluate, and adjust ongoing.
• Separate people (performance) from structure
• Use the incubator model – a learning laboratory.
• Consider the clients, again and again.

Strategic Planning
• What will the structure look like, or need

to look like, in the future?
• The organizational structure undergoes succession and

transformation, just as do the names in the boxes.

Answers
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Giles
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Jacknain
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Making The Most of Your Team

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Making the Most

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

ZweigWhite is a Registered Provider with The American Institute of

This program is registered with the AIA/CES for continuing

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Why care about the organization’s structure?

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Strategy and Structure

Structure dictates how

• Structural reorientation will not make a bad strategy good or elevate

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

These issues often inspire firms to reorganize:

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

• Roles and responsibilities

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

• It’s better to be organized than not

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

Project Manager Project Manager

• Creates very clearly defined organizational boundaries and

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Vice President Vice President Vice President

Project Manager Project Manager

• Most common form of professional organization, highest comfort

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Studio Leader Studio Leader Studio Leader

Director Director Director Director

• Creates dynamic, multidisciplinary teams that can respond to

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

Project Manager Project Manager

• Presents a clear message to the marketplace, defining clients

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Vice President Vice President

Project Manager Project Manager Senior Civil Senior Civil

• Overlays one organization (usually Market/Client or Geographic)

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Managing Director Managing Director

• Organizes units according to what works best for given markets,

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Chains of Responsibility and

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

• Facilitates managerial accounting practices (e.g.

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Ease of Market Cultural Managerial Financial

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Managing Director Managing Director Vice President

• Coexists as a separate organization

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

Office Manager Project Manager Project Manager

• Most common in Geographic organizations

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com

• So what is the answer? What is the right one?

For most AE firms, we recommend the Market/Client

All organization structures create challenges!

Visit us at: www.zweigwhite.com