Your organization as a Graph

We think of companies as hierarchies: people form teams, teams sit in departments, and departments belong to divisions. But does this mental model help us understand how work actually gets done?

Not really. We create cross-functional groups and work streams around projects to foster collaboration. In extreme cases, we even go through reorgs and layoffs to help improve the structure. But it’s still difficult to quantify how much all of these initiatives help because we lack a way to visualize how work flows through the organization.

What if we could map who is involved in a project, which teams frequently interact, and where the bottlenecks are? What if we could identify pockets where knowledge accumulates, as well as the areas that are left in the dark? What if we could leverage the people who act as bridges and support those who unintentionally create isolation?

With such insights, we can enhance our organizational design by bringing teams that need to collaborate closer together while removing the barriers that hamper their efficiency. We could even take it a step further and “test” organizational changes before implementing them by simulating how information would flow in the new structure.

In this talk we’ll explore how visualizing your organization as a graph can uncover hidden structures, reveal communication pathways, and help you build better products.