Major conference themes

Sharing experiences in major organization re-designs from around the world: To be explored in the private, governmental, and non-profit sectors

Big Data and Organization Design: Technological innovation has long driven strategy.  Now as the rate of digital technological change increases exponentially, concurrent design of light and flexible structures are required to fully realize potential value. Thought leaders are preparing a mini-book of challenges and propositions to catalyze conference discussions.

IT, data management and analytics in Financial Services and Health Care:  How to set newly designed functions at the right level of work complexity and to design effective lateral relationships.

Exploring complementary features of vertical and lateral designs:  Will be explored with thought leaders in other major organization design approaches.

Effective design of:
• Small and medium sized entrepreneurial organizations
• Not-for-profit, Common Good Organizations
• Health care organizations

Who should attend

Experienced practitioners of levels-based organization design can expect the same state-of-the-art sharing of practice as in previous conferences.

IBM, IBM clients & IBM business partner executives – as well as managers of other IT, data management and analytic firms wishing to improve product design, sales, implementation, and client organization design to capture the full value of expanding analytic powers

Financial services and health care executives

Entrepreneurs, founding owners, presidents and senior managers of small- and medium-sized businesses who want an effective short course in designing and managing their growing organizations

CEOs, senior managers, HR executives, and high potential individuals who need a meta-model for sustainable organization and leadership effectiveness.

General managers with accountability for implementing strategy

Vice Presidents of Human Resources tasked with building strategic capability in their own function and throughout the organization

High-potentials needing an in-depth understanding of complex organization dynamics and how to succeed in special project assignments

Senior management consultants who want a powerful short course in organization design and management and to align themselves with a global network of senior organization design practitioners to collaborate on major projects

Senior practitioners of complementary organization design approaches

Academics in organizational studies looking to include these concepts in their teaching, research and consulting

Learn how to

• •  Determine the optimal number of organizational layers
• •  Establish clear roles, accountabilities, and authorities to build effective cross-functional relationships
• •  Create a new business unit or separate company based on RO principles
• •  Integrate an acquisition using the powerful lens of work levels to sort out the chaos of titles and compensation
• •  Design robust project management structures to handle complexity
• •  Improve the design and staffing of the Human Resources function and manage the careers of high potential HR professionals
• •  Exercise leadership that will help managers to become effective leaders and employees to use their full capabilities
• •  Understand how to leverage all components of the complete system of management to ensure sustained organization and leadership effectiveness

What past participants said

• "A rare conference experience indeed! Dialoguing with other executives and practitioners at the top of their fields. Lots of systems thinking."
• "Learning in a selling free environment was refreshing."
• "Your new professional development format is engaging and first class. You've gone from 90% lecture to putting the concepts into well-designed time-efficient E-learning so that our time together at the clinic could be focused on applying concepts."
• "Generosity everywhere! I was amazed at the collegiality, trust and sharing the Society has developed in this professional community over the years. It was a privilege to join you. I invited one of your presenting CEOs to speak to my senior team and his time with us saved months of time."

This conference offers three format choices

For the Full Conference Option you have 2 Clinic choices:
Clinic #1: Organization Design
Clinic #2: Management Process

Recommended (for all 3 format choices): For those without extensive background in requisite organization, please review the E-learning modules on the Global Organization Design Society's web site to provide you with a good conceptual overview of the organization design methods we will be discussing.

Essential for the full five-day conference format: The opening clinic assumes that all participants have studied the E-learning modules so that they will be able to fully participate in the group work to apply basic RO concepts to produce effective solutions to the focus case.

Optional: Some thought leaders are writing a short book on major Big Data and Organization Design challenges and opportunities. Once released you can read that prior to the conference. You can also participate in a teleconference and if you wish an online discussion forum moderated by clinic staff who are Senior Fellows of the Society.

After the event

You will receive one-year continued access to the GO Society's on-line professional development program including advanced recommended readings, videos, and on-line moderated discussion. You will also receive an invitation to become a Society affiliated organization design practitioner upon successful completion of the program and recommendation by a distance coach.

General conference schedule

Conference sponsor

IBM is a global technology company transforming itself from a traditional supplier of hardware to the IT executive to a provider of solutions supporting the enterprise C-Suite in capturing the promise of exponentially expanding data and analytical capability.

IBM sponsored an international conference on Big Data and Organization Design in Paris in the Spring of 2013.

It was there that IBM recognized that the levels of work complexity and human capability methods used by the Global Organization Design Society had potential to contribute and decided to co-sponsor this conference.

 2014 Conference Brochure (May 26) (781.32 kB) 

 Download Conference Registration Form (51.28 kB)