The Real Org Chart

1.
The Real Org Chart | Aligned 07/12/22, 6:53 AM
Chapter 1. The Real Org Chart
A NOTE FOR EARLY RELEASE READERS
With Early Release ebooks, you get books in their earliest form—the author’s raw
and unedited content as they write—so you can take advantage of these technolo-
gies long before the official release of these titles.
This will be the 2nd chapter of the final book.
If you have comments about how we might improve the content and/or examples
in this book, or if you notice missing material within this chapter, please reach
out to the editor at arufino@oreilly.com.
Bruce’s Story
I once reported to a quirky, charismatic CEO. It took me over a year, though, to fig-
ure out I didn’t work for him.
You know the type: started something from nothing based on his gut feeling there
was an opportunity; turned out to be right so kept following his gut; was success-
ful enough that he raised some money; hired some professionals to run sales, fi-
nance, and other functions. I joined as employee number 20-something.
The CEO asked me to help launch new products. There was no shortage of promis-
ing ideas, so I had fun prototyping, testing, and launching. We were operating on
the fly, which was just his style. I gave him regular demos and progress updates.
He told me I was “safe hands” for his baby and our meetings were always upbeat.
Then came the day the CFO told me they were making some changes. The VP of
sales would become CEO, and the founder I’d worked with would take a board
role (code for a large shareholder with no power). I, it turned out, would report to
a former peer.
I learned that they’d hired me on the board’s insistence. They wanted a head of
Product to provide structure and rigor to what they described as the CEO’s inabili-
ty to focus. They wanted, it turned out, a detailed opportunity analysis and busi-
ness justification for everything.
I was shocked. I was working for the CEO. He’s the boss, right? Why hadn’t I heard
any of this from him? “You have to know how to manage the CEO,” was the reply.
I thought we were operating as a lean startup. How was I supposed to know that
the board expected a business case for everything? “As a professional, you should
know this instinctively.”
https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/aligned/9781098134419/ch01.html Page 1 of 22
1. The Real Org Chart | Aligned 07/12/22, 6:53 AM
If you want business cases, I can do that easily, I replied. Why change the report-
ing structure? “We trust this other guy [my peer]. We’ve worked with him before.”
What had I done wrong? I had naively believed the org chart. Who was at the top
of that chart and who I reported to were not nearly as important, it turned out, as
who had the power and what they cared about.
I had overlooked the real power players and neglected to establish trust and ways
of working where it mattered.
I had also misread the culture of the organization and approached decisions in
entirely the wrong way. I thought the organization was founder led, when it had
in fact changed to become finance led before I even got there.
All this meant that I had misunderstood my job, the reason they hired me. No one
told me. But as a product person, the lesson for me was that I didn’t do my
research.
Doing Your Research
As Product People, many of us have developed customer research skills. We know

how to conduct interviews to get into the heads of buyers and users. We know
how to establish enough trust that people will be honest with us about goals and
aspirations. Despite our understandable pride in our products, we even listen
sympathetically while customers complain about what we’ve built. We also know
to dig beneath the surface of specific requests to real needs. And we’ve learned
how to frame trade-offs in the customer’s own language. (If you need help devel-
oping these research skills, check out our recommended reading list.)
What if we treated the people in our own organization as if they were customers?
We often say we need them to “buy” what we’re selling, right? That’s more than a
metaphor. Your executive team actually provides the money for your salary and
the salaries of your team. And, though your colleagues, partners, and other stake-
holders don’t pay with dollars, they do pay with their time, their creativity, and
their support.
So our first and most foundational piece of advice (after taking the task of stake-
holder management seriously) is to treat your stakeholders like customers. Taking
this stance will open your eyes to many more stakeholders inside and outside of
your company. It will also help you think of them and their needs more empathet-
ically. Use the hard skills of research you’ve developed to help you manage the
soft skills of stakeholder management.
In order to properly define your company’s culture and organizational structure,

and thus use this information to determine who your real stakeholders are, you
need to examine the company from a few different angles and answer a few key
questions: Which department leads? How does the company make decisions?
How is the company structured? From there you can categorize your stakeholders
and determine a tailored approach to each key stakeholder.
By the time you are finished with this chapter, you should be able to use what you
know about your company to build the real org chart. Let’s dive in.
Your Organization’s Culture
If you can’t trust the official company org chart as a map to your stakeholders,
how do you even know where to start? Is getting buy-in from your boss enough or
do you need to stop and align with everyone you bump into the hall? Who really
matters?
Which Department Leads?
In theory, all of your stakeholders have equal sway, but that’s simply not true in
the real world. Someone or some team in your organization has more sway than
others due to history, personalities, money, or politics. Start mapping the real org
chart for your product with the department, function, clique, or individual that
calls the shots. Below are a few questions that will help you identify the folks that
matter most. You need to answer the question: who has the power?
Who has the power? To answer this question, you must first ask what is the domi-
nant culture of your organization? Is the company sales driven (Balmer’s Mi-
crosoft)? Engineering led (Google)? Is marketing calling the shots (Hubspot)? Fi-
nance (D&B)? The lawyers (Oracle)? Design (Apple1)? (You’d probably know if it
was Product, but our favorite examples are Slack, Zoom, and Netflix.) Or is it an
iconic founder (Tesla)? What about banks and other industries that depend on
technology to deliver a fundamentally non-tech service (Capital One, Progressive
Insurance)? Or hardware makers operating at such scale that supply chain and
manufacturing considerations have huge influence (Huawei, Samsung)?
Bruce learned that the CEO doesn’t always lead. And even if they do in your orga-
nization, they likely lead with a bias toward the concerns of one function or
another.
To diagnose the dominant culture in your organization, ask yourself these

questions:
What department did your CEO come from before they were in charge?
Which functions are headed by someone whose title starts with “Chief” and
ends with “Officer?”
Which department has the easiest time getting budget approval for new or re-
placement hires?
If you make a presentation, which department do most questions come from?
Which department awards prizes or bonuses to thank people from other de-
partments for their support?
Think of who the CEO has coffee with in the morning. What department are
they in?
A few other clues may point you toward the right answer:
If saving a deal or a renewal usually wins over sticking to the roadmap, your
organization may be sales-led.
If the top initiatives are about cost cutting, margin, or the Rule of 402, your or-
ganization may be finance-led. (Though this may be temporary in an economic
downturn.)
If improving the customer experience trumps other considerations, your orga-
nization may be design-led or even product-led.
If patents (creating them for the company and getting around others’) are
more important than other things, your organization may be legal-led.
If the focus is on efficiency, process, and partnerships your organization might
be operations or manufacturing-led.
If procurement and logistics are the biggest factors in your roadmap, your or-
ganization may be supply chain-led.
If developing or exploiting new technologies is more important than serving
customers, your organization may be engineering-led.
If overall your organization stays the course toward a healthy product vision,
you may be in a product-led3 environment.
Not all of your answers will point to the same place, but which function turns up
most often? That department or division is probably where your company’s lead-
ership is centered. And that function is where you should start when prioritizing
stakeholders.
Who Else Matters?
If you’ve figured out where the locus of power is in your organization, the next
question is, does anyone else matter?
Organizations naturally gravitate to a certain decision-making style. Some are

very top-down, with every key decision being made by one or a few key people
and then handed down through the ranks. Some are very bottom up, with man-
agement providing very light governance of team focus and methods. Others
seem to effortlessly reconcile these extremes, meeting somewhere in the middle.
Still others trust in bureaucracy or process, with no one seemingly in charge.
Your organization’s decision style will help you understand how wide a net to cast
when seeking stakeholder alignment. In a very top-down organization, getting the
CEO’s buy-in may be all you need.
Understanding your organization’s decision culture
The consulting firm Bain & Company describes 4 decision-making styles4 that or-
ganizations employ. We’ve organized these into a handy 2x2 grid here (Figure 1-
1).
Figure 1-1. Each organization has a dominant approach to making decisions. It’s important to work within
your organization’s usual approach.
Let’s break these four sections down:
Directive
One or a few individuals decide and inform stakeholders of a decision.
There is little or no expectation that others will be consulted before a deci-
sion, though sometimes comments and questions are entertained after the
announcement. The expectation is that everyone will get on board regard-
less of their opinion or preference.
Who: Support from a short list of power players is critical. No one else’s
opinion really matters (unless they can influence those same power
players).
Democratic
Those involved gather information and then take a vote. Participants may
be a small group or the entire company. Everyone is expected to accept the
majority decision.
Who: Gaining support from what may be a large list of voters and influ-
encers before the vote is necessary. Negotiation and reciprocity are criti-
cal here to ensure you have the votes, as in formal legislatures.
Participative
One person owns the decision, but input is actively sought from stakehold-
ers who have relevant expertise or interest.
Who: When you are that one person, you must discover the list of people
who would say (or who others would say) “should” be consulted. Leav-
ing out someone with a strong opinion invites criticism and second-
guessing later.
Consensus
Everyone involved agrees on a plan before a decision is finalized. Often
there is extensive discussion and debate.
Who: As in a Participative org, you’ll have a large and varied set of

stakeholders. In addition to consulting these folks, though, you also have
to convince a large majority to agree.
For example, think about a recent decision in your company that affected you,
something that probably required some consideration before becoming final like
a change in vacation policy, entering a new market, a hiring freeze, or a
reorganization.
If you (or someone you report up to) were not consulted before the decision,
your organization’s style is most likely directive.
If you or someone you report up to voted on this decision, your organization’s
style is probably democratic.
If your input was sought and considered, but someone else made the final de-
cision, your organization’s style is possibly participative.
If the decision required extensive discussion and debate before most people
got on board, your organization’s style is likely consensus. (And if the process
never really ended with a clear decision, it’s almost certainly consensus.)
Some decisions are more important than others and a single organization may ap-
ply different styles to different situations. Whether to have tacos or pizza for a
company event may be a directive decision by the organizer. That same organizer
might put the location for the event to a vote, however, and might postpone a de-
cision on the agenda until a consensus is reached on the organizing team.
Decisions may also be made differently under different circumstances. In The

Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz argues that a CEO must take a more
directive approach than usual when the company they lead faces an existential
threat. He writes: “Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning.
Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win.”
Whatever your organization’s current style, it’s important for you to understand
how big decisions are generally made. You can then anticipate and work within
the expectations of your stakeholders. If you try to impose your decision on a con-
sensus culture, you are likely to experience a lot of pushback. And asking a lot of
people for their opinion may be perceived as weak and indecisive in a directive
culture.
In our opening story, Bruce learned that his company was Finance-led, with a
very directive decision-making culture. Decisions became quicker, easier, and
more durable with that realization. Bruce wrote up a detailed pricing proposal for
the CFO, then dropped by his office to discuss it. The decision to move forward
was made in 10 minutes and never revisited.
See Chapter 5: Getting to Yes for discussion of how individual stakeholders make
decisions.
WHICH DECISION STYLE IS BEST?
Culture is difficult to change, so understanding and working within it are neces-

sary if you want to succeed in your organization. If you have the opportunity,
however, to set or influence the culture of a team, a division, or a company you
founded, we have a recommendation.
We’ve found that the participative style often provides the ideal balance between
broad input and speed, as well as between decisiveness and buy-in. Bain & Com-
pany says this approach “combines single-point accountability with a collabora-
tive approach to the process.”
In fact, this approach is typical of the sort of cross-functional product teams found
in fast-growing tech companies. Product people are responsible for product deci-
sions like what features to develop, but they work closely with engineers, design-
ers, marketers, salespeople, and others to make those decisions.
For more on how to put this approach into practice, see the DRI and Advice
Process sections of Chapter 3 on Establishing Roles.
Your Organization’s Structure
If you are having trouble navigating through your organization, you are not
alone. Titles are vague, reporting lines seem to cross each other and double back,
individuals can report to one person, be on someone else’s “team,” and be on loan
to a special project all at the same time.
Organizations tend to follow one of 4 structures, or to mix and match them based
on their perceived needs. Let’s take a moment to describe these 4 and how they
inform who you need to prioritize as stakeholders (Figure 1-2).
Figure 1-2. Most organizations employ one of these 4 structures or a hybrid combining multiple structures.
The number of types of functions have been simplified for ease of reading. A solid line represents formal re-
porting authority. A dotted line indicates secondary or informal authority. Identifying which structures your
organization follows will help you map your stakeholders.
Functional
This is the traditional arrangement where marketing, sales, product, engineering,

services, and other departments are each led by an executive reporting to a chief
executive such as a president, CEO, or director who heads the company as a
whole.
As functional organizations grow, departments put up walls around themselves.

It’s tempting to stay within your silo, and keeping your own team happy may
work for a time. A myopic focus on department-level efficiency, however, is not
good for your product. As Bruce discovered when LetterBuilder was stillborn, you
can’t be successful as a product leader without the cooperation of all contributing
functions.
Your job as a product leader is to ensure that the people from each function have
the context and urgency necessary to act in a coordinated fashion. You’ll have to
work to figure out who you need to influence in each department. And, in some
cases, members of those teams may resent your attempts at coordination, seeing
it as interference.
We’ll dive into how to discuss the cross-functional role of product leadership in
Chapter 3: Establishing Roles.
Divisional
The organization is divided into teams by product, line of business, geography, or

brand (or some combination of these). Each division has its own people in prod-
uct, engineering, marketing, and other functions, all focused on servicing a partic-
ular market niche.
Many well-known companies operate this way. General Motors, for example, was
organized by brand in its early days, with Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Pontiac, and
other brands run by separate management (though their dominant structure to-
day is divided by geographic region). Procter & Gamble is similarly divided by
product line, separating beauty products from healthcare, and grooming, among
others.
As they grow, companies often turn to a divisional structure to break departmen-

tal silos. Individual divisions may have great autonomy, allowing them to better
focus on their niche. This structure also effectively shrinks the number of stake-
holders to those in your division.
Establishing rapport is easier and this can help to overcome the functional discon-
nection that (still) exists within the division. In short, in a single division that’s
part of a vast corporation, it’s easier to imagine we’re on the same team.
Matrix
Teams report to department heads as in a functional organization, but are as-

signed to work within a division-like structure focused on a particular product,
product line, or geographic niche. These assignments are usually full-time and
long-lasting. In a matrix structure, individuals effectively belong to two teams and
have two bosses.
Many product leaders find themselves part of a product squad (or team, crew,
pod, scrum team, etc.) consisting of developers, designers, testers, analysts, and
possibly others assigned by their functional manager to work on that team. The
product manager may set direction for the team, but the members of that team do
not formally report to them. Engineers, for example, still report to the Engineer-
ing department.
Typically, the product leader’s authority is informal. They are responsible for the
product strategy, the priorities for the team, and the requirements, but in reality
many find their decisions questioned or countermanded by functional leaders
such as engineering managers, with more formal authority over individuals.
The head of a product team may add something to the product requirements, for
example, only to discover that a functional supervisor has redirected the assigned
engineer to something else. They hold the power of the dollar over these individu-
als, and that is hard to overcome.
It’s important, therefore, for product leaders to influence, not only their immedi-
ate squad, but also the functional leaders those individuals actually report to.
Guild
Popularized by Spotify in 2012, what we’ll call the “guild model” attempts to ad-
dress the weaknesses of the matrix model by swapping formal reporting lines.
Team members are aligned primarily to products or product lines. They also form
into communities of practice or “guilds,” which do not have formal authority, but
which support members with standards and practices for their particular
function.
Guilds are usually led by a senior practitioner who hires and fires, assigns mem-
bers to teams, and leads efforts to define best practices or develop reusable tem-
plates, libraries, etc. The UX guild, for example, might define best practices for
user research, while the front end developers guild might advise on choosing a
javascript framework and organize contributions to a widget library.
What this means for product leaders is that they have greater authority and au-
tonomy in directing their squads. Product teams are freer to take or ignore the ad-
vice of their colleagues and this may reduce the burden of stakeholder manage-
ment for product leaders. Guild leaders often wield considerable informal author-
ity, however. Use the TIPS framework to determine where they fit in your stake-
holder priority list.
Other Structures
Frustrations with each of the options above have led to numerous variations. The
trendy Helix structure described by McKinsey, for example, aims to improve on
the matrix and guild structures by equalizing functional and product responsibili-
ties. Instead of picking primary and secondary “bosses,” this model splits the typi-
cal management role in two.
McKinsey describes the two supervisors this way: “One emphasizes value creation,
or what gets done, by setting priorities for the business – overseeing day-to-day
work, creating value and helping deliver a full and satisfying customer experience.
The other is attuned to capabilities, or how work gets done. They develop people and
resources, set standards for working and drive functional excellence.”
Flat organizations jettison top-down management altogether, attempting to em-

power individual employees to think creatively, experiment, and innovate.
Employees at Valve, the gaming company responsible for hits like Portal, Team
Fortress, and Counter-Strike, have no job titles. Employees can join whatever
project they like. They can also start their own project if they can attract sufficient
funding and team members.5
Companies are experimenting with other non-traditional structures, including ho-

lacracy67, DAOs8, and others.
We have not seen any real-world organizations where authority is eliminated or

perfectly balanced. Regardless of the official reporting structure (or lack of one),
we strongly suggest you use the tools in this book to work out which axis – the
functional or the product – has the upper hand, and act accordingly.
Figure out who has the power, who is interested, and take care of those people
like they were on your team, because they are.
Hybrid
Many companies mix and match different approaches across their business. A
functional org might, for example, put together a cross-functional team to develop
a new product. Once it is launched, they might dissolve that team and spread the
responsibilities across the existing departments.
The most common hybrid approach we’ve seen is to use a matrix structure for
product development functions (engineering, design, testing, product, and data
science as examples), but to organize other functions departmentally (sales, mar-
keting, finance, HR, and legal).
Bruce worked as a product manager at a company like this. Taking a leadership

role across product, engineering, and design was expected. When he approached
people in marketing, however, he was viewed as an outsider. People questioned
his motives for asking about pricing, messaging, and plans for the next user con-
ference. Insight came when a reorganization placed product marketing under
Bruce’s own vice president. Once both teams worked for the same executive, co-
operation became easy, natural, and expected.
Figure 1-5.3 shows a real-world example of a SaaS company that mixes divisions
by market with a matrix for most functions, but uses a purely functional structure
for what they call “shared resources” like finance and HR. Per the consultants that
designed the structure: “Presidents will have dotted-line management of all mar-
ket-aligned leaders to ensure cross-functional alignment to a segment specific
strategy.”
As a product leader in a hybrid organization, you’ll need to cast a wide net across
your org. Not only do you need to manage people within your immediate team
and division, but you may have to influence power players outside of your line of
business to whom your obvious stakeholders report. Approach people outside of
your matrix or guild bubble with respect for their position and authority. Most of
them don’t work for you, not even with a dotted line.
Figure 1-3. A simplified org chart from a real SaaS company with a hybrid structure. Divisions were created
around distinct lines of business, but most people working in each division report formally to an executive
within their function. Those functional leaders and their support staff, and company-wide functions such as
finance and HR operate outside the divisions as “shared resources.”
Who Matters by Structure
All but the functional structure share common challenges, including multiple
bosses and shared resources.
Dotted lines and areas of focus help to resolve who is primarily responsible for
what, but in practice there is always tension.
Bruce coached a product manager who was struggling to get his team to run lean
experiments. The engineers on this product manager’s team felt he was asking
them to cut corners. Bruce discovered that the team’s engineering leader had
placed an emphasis on code quality, test coverage, and documentation. This was
at odds with an experimental approach, which typically requires rapid iterations
with throw-away code meant only to validate assumptions prior to designing a
more permanent solution.
Tracing this issue to its source allowed Bruce and this product manager to negoti-
ate an agreement on the code quality standards for an experiment in contrast to
those for a production feature.
But the source of the problem was conflicting direction from two different “boss-
es.” The solution required getting both product leadership and engineering lead-
ership together to recognize their different goals, acknowledge who owned what
kinds of decisions, and align on what was best for the company. See chapter 5 on
getting to yes for techniques to resolve seemingly irreconcilable differences.
Given this level of confusion about who calls the shots in today’s complex org
structures, it can be hard to know which stakeholders to focus on. Table 2.1 pro-
vides a quick reference for who matters in which sort of structure.
Table 1-1. Different people matter more in different org structures. Use this chart to identify who to prioritize
in your structure.
Type Who Matters Most Who Matters Less
Functional Your departmental leader Other functional

leaders
Divisional Your division leader Other divisional

leaders, centralized
services
Matrix Your functional leader Your product leader,

centralized services
Guild Your product leader Your functional

leader, centralized
services
Hybrid Your product or division leader, Other product or

functional leader, and centralized divisional leaders
services
The TIPS Framework
There are so many potential stakeholders, it can be helpful to categorize them (Ta-
ble 2-2). This allows you to prioritize and approach them differently. We’ve devel-
oped a simple framework called TIPS for organizing your stakeholders into 4 cate-
gories. TIPS stands for your “Team,” those “Impacted” by your decisions, “Power
Players,” and “Subject Experts.”
Table 1-2. The TIPS framework divides your stakeholders into categories according to their influence and in-
terest in your product. Use it to categorize your stakeholders, making them easier to prioritize.
Category People Who… Examples
Team Contribute to your product, including Developers, designers,

full-time dedicated members (what we analysts, testers, doc
call your “core” team) and part-time or writers, teams with
occasional contributors (or what we shared dependencies,
call your “extended” team) marketers,
salespeople
Impacted Experience the effects (good or bad) of Customers, channel

your product and technology
partners,
shareholders,
employees invested in
company success
Power Can say yes or no to your product, to Influential executives;

Players fund your efforts, to approve your board members;
plans, or to strongly influence other influential customers,
stakeholders budgetary, legal, or
regulatory approvers
Subject Have information you need to make Analysts, researchers,

Experts well-informed decisions about your scientists. architects,
product customers, advisors,
Here is how to understand each category in the TIPS framework and identify who
falls within each category.
Team
If you need someone to do work of some kind, to produce something that con-
tributes to your product or its success, they are part of your team. If you’re a soft-
ware product manager, this is your team of developers, designers, and testers.
The same is true for people you only need part time, occasionally, or even at one
crucial point along the journey to success. This includes other development teams
where you’re depending on what they deliver. It also includes members of other
departments who can make or break your product. It may even include power
players from anywhere in the organization who have a keen interest in what you
are doing.
Bruce once had the tough job of retiring a product that was producing significant
revenue. As a product manager, he worked with an executive sponsor who was
interested in the problem. He also worked with Finance to show that required
technical updates would make the product wildly unprofitable, with Sales to de-
velop a plan for replacing the lost revenue, with Legal to ensure we wouldn’t vio-
late any contracts or license agreements, and with Support to provide options for
customers still using the product. Those folks temporarily joined the full-time
team assigned to the product. They worked with us off and on for a few weeks
and, satisfied with the plan, they went back to their regular duties.
Approach team members as colleagues whose expertise and input you need and
respect. You may have the authority to set direction, but you want buy-in to your
mission, not just compliance with your directives. The best way to get them on the
bus is to ask them to help navigate.
Impacted
Customers are obviously affected by the decisions you make about features, de-
sign, performance, pricing, and so on. There are plenty of books about how to en-
gage with customers, discover their needs, and validate solutions, however. (See
Recommended Reading on our website [Draft here.) So, in this book, we’ve chosen
not to focus on external customers. Internal customers, however, who may use
what you provide to do their jobs, should be front and center in your impacted
quadrant.
Many people inside your organization are impacted, however, even if they never
work directly on your product. Sales and Support teams want something easy to
sell and service, for example, and they benefit if you bring them in early in your
planning. You may have a training team that needs time to develop new material
for product enhancements. Your HR team may want lead time if you are making
the case to expand your team. (And Finance may have something to say about
that.)
Heading outside the walls of your org, we find other impacted stakeholders. Tech-
nology partners, service vendors and suppliers whose own products contribute to
yours, distribution partners and resellers who get your product to market, and
implementation, integration, and service partners who help customers use your
product – all of these folks depend on your product to drive their business. They
choose who to do business with based on their estimation of how much you can
contribute to their success. This means they have a stake and they should be will-
ing – even eager – to help you succeed.
Lead conversations with impacted folks with empathy. Make it clear your job is to
make their jobs easier so that you both succeed. To do that, you need to under-
stand their job or business, what success looks like to them, and where they cur-
rently struggle. (Does this sound like a customer interview? It should.)
Power Players
Your boss may have empowered you to make decisions for your product or other
initiative. (If so, awesome.) But it’s still a good idea to keep them in the loop, along
with their boss and up the chain to the CEO. The first rule of managing up is to
keep them reacting to your plans, not wondering what they might be. Don’t leave
these folks off your list.
Some people in your company may seem to be paid to impede your product aspi-
rations. Centralized services like legal, HR, security, pricing, and IT exist for the
good of the company, but their priorities will not always line up with yours. Le-
gal’s job is to prevent lawsuits, for example, which leads them to be very cautious
when you want to use open source software in your product. Managing this may
mean bringing Legal in early enough that they can actually advise on which open
source projects have friendly licenses and which may cause trouble down the
road. (At which point they become Team members, rather than just gatekeepers!)
We mentioned the leading department or function in the section on culture but

there are also the hidden power players, the ones who aren’t prominent on the
org chart or in an official approver role. Consider these questions:
If the company faced a major decision, what one person (besides the CEO)
would have to be involved?
If you walk by the CEO’s office (or the office of your department head) and the
door is closed, who is probably in there with them?
Who has the closest relationship with the investors or the board of directors?
Who is not officially on the exec team but is invited to key meetings?
Is there a founder who is no longer the CEO or CTO but their opinion still car-
ries a lot of weight?
Is there anyone who drops into routine meetings unannounced just to
observe?
If there is one person who comes to mind when thinking about these questions,
it’s wise to consider the informal influence they could have on a broad spectrum
of your stakeholders.
Approach power players as respected authorities. Ask for their advice and guid-
ance. Paradoxically, asking permission explicitly or showing too much sub-
servience can backfire. Most people are embarrassed by obsequiousness, even an-
noyed. Ask if they think your proposal “makes sense” rather than “is it ok.”
Subject Experts
You want the best information you can get to make good decisions about direc-
tion, strategy, and implementation. You should prioritize direct conversations
with customers or potential customers, but why not begin by asking for an over-
view of the market from an analyst, a regulator, a journalist in the space, or a
salesperson who has sold in that niche?
Bruce once hired a competitive intelligence expert to help him get a sense of a
new industry. Learning the capabilities of the main competitors, identifying a few
smaller ones he was unfamiliar with, and (especially) uncovering the perceptions
customers had of those competitors was immensely valuable. It’s worth mention-
ing, though, that Bruce did not follow the analyst’s advice on how best to enter the
market. The company had unique and strategic capabilities Bruce chose not to
disclose to the analyst, given that their knowledge was available to the highest
bidder.
We mentioned Legal, HR, security, pricing, and other central services earlier as
potential Power Players. In some organizations, however, they act simply as ex-
perts to be consulted rather than power players or approvers. If they work for
your company you may be freer to disclose confidential information to them.
Even so, recognize that their interests lie not primarily with your product, but
with an agenda dictated by their role.
A technical architect Bruce worked with proposed he hire an approved outsourc-

ing company to develop a product for his division despite their admitted inability
to deliver on certain key functionality. When he asked why, she said it was the
policy of the company to outsource development where possible. He then asked
her what she would do, and, in a moment of candor, she switched gears rapidly
and said that if she were in his role she wouldn’t use that vendor.
Experts have information and understanding of things you don’t. Ask them to
help you understand that portion of their expertise that applies to your product.
Take their opinions about what you should do, however, with a grain of salt. Your
expertise is your product and that has to drive your decisions in the end.
APPROVERS
In most organizations, you have to be mindful of what we call “approvers.” These

are people charged with enforcing budgetary, legal, regulatory, or other policies.
In some orgs, these are power players. They can bring your product plans to a
nasty halt if you don’t consult them early and keep them in the loop.
People in these roles are often more interested in compliance with their existing
framework than in innovation, meeting customer needs, or even the success of
your product.
Bruce once developed a pricing proposal that ran afoul of the central pricing
team’s policies. He spent days arguing his case with the leader of the pricing func-
tion to no avail.
Not all approvers really have the power they claim to, however. In frustration,
Bruce appealed to the head of his division, who promptly overruled the pricing
tsar. It turned out that this approver was less a power player and more a subject
expert. Lesson learned.
Categorizing Your Stakeholders
To classify your stakeholders using the TIPS framework, start with your Team and
add people to each subsequent category only if they don’t fit the previous. (Your
team is impacted but your impacted partners are not on your team.) If your Fi-
nance team, for example, has final say on how to pay royalties, they are Power
Players. If they don’t have that power, however, you may still want to include
them in their capacity as Subject Experts.
Prioritizing Stakeholders
Following our advice, you may soon find you have an overwhelmingly long list of
stakeholders to manage. This is closer to reality than we’d like to admit. Tim
Bouhour, Director of Product at Genomics England, says that (especially in a ma-
trix org) “everybody feels they need to be in the room.” In reality, that’s simply
impractical.
Everyone in your TIPS matrix needs to be involved at some level, but we can pro-
vide some help in prioritizing those stakeholders you should keep closest. (See
Chapter 5 on getting to yes and Chapter 7 on maintaining alignment for guidance
on a tiered plan for involving your stakeholders.)
Identifying the most important among your stakeholders can be as simple as map-
ping them on a 2x2 matrix. And, fortunately, there is a hidden matrix behind the
TIPS Framework. The vertical axis is power and the horizontal is interest (Figure
2-4).
Figure 1-4. The TIPS contains a hidden matrix mapping influence and interest. Use it to plot your stakehold-
ers, prioritizing those closer to the upper right.
The Power Dimension
People who can approve your budget, your hiring, your roadmap, or any other as-
pect of your plan should score high on your power axis. This could include key ex-
ecutives or even your board of directors, not to mention your boss. It can also in-
clude functions like legal, HR, or security who have the job of ensuring you and
your team comply with regulations or policies. Critically, it also includes members
of your product development team who can make or break your product based
on how focused and bought-in they are.
The Interest Dimension
People who are interested in what you are doing and whether it succeeds or fails
should score high on your interest axis. Someone like the CFO with a great deal of
power may only be interested in your product if it is contributing significantly to
company profits or losses.
Plot your stakeholders on this matrix and focus most intensely on those that have
both high power and high interest.
Where to Start
Start your conversations with people in the upper right but, perhaps counterintu-
itively, we recommend proceeding clockwise, moving to the lower right, then low-
er left, and then up to the upper left. By speaking to everyone else first, you’ll
have broad alignment and a strong case to present to those with a lot of power –
and hopefully little interest in opposing you and your well-formed arguments.
The Real Org Chart
The Stakeholder Canvas describes the people you have to work with and influ-
ence if your product is to be successful, but it is only tangentially related to the
org chart you normally think of. This chart maps everyone you care about by how
they relate to you and what you need to accomplish. It may even include people
outside your company.
Critically, it contains all the information you’ve developed as part of this chapter
to help you navigate your stakeholders. It also includes sections you will fill out
later based on your shuttle diplomacy and stakeholder interviews (see the rele-
vant sections of chapter 5).
What’s in the Canvas
Figure 1-5. The Stakeholder Canvas allows you to map out who really matters to the success of your product –
the real org chart.
Annotation for the Canvas
Your product or other initiative, the thing you need stakeholders to accomplish
Your name (hey, you count, too!)
The goals, values, and/or experiences that link you with your stakeholders (see
chapter 1 on Building Trust)
The name of each stakeholder, categorized according to the TIPS Framework
The role of each stakeholder. Not a precise title, but their function on your can-
vas such as “developer,” “marketing,” or “analyst” (See chapter 4 on the typical
needs of specific roles)
The decision style of each stakeholder (See chapter 1 on gaining trust)
Your ask - what you want or need from this stakeholder, e.g., a killer prototype,
a dedicated sales specialist assigned to your team, help with a patent filing, or
just continued funding
The goals, values and/or experiences that you and this stakeholder share. (See
chapter 1 on developing trust)
What’s hot for this stakeholder right now that may be driving their thinking
and priorities (See Stakeholder interviews in chapter 5)
What this stakeholder wants or needs from you in order to align (See Stake-
holder interviews in chapter 5)
Download a Stakeholder Canvas template from our website at www.alignedbook.-

com.
Building Your Canvas
Start creating your stakeholder canvas by filling in the stakeholders you are sure
of. Concentrate in the upper right quadrant and move clockwise around the grid.
Try to list the top 1-2 people in each TIPS category.
If possible, check your initial mapping with a trusted colleague or mentor. Your
manager or someone else well placed in the org can help you see past the official
org chart to the real one you are trying to create.
Make your canvas a living, growing guide to your real org chart. Start your stake-
holder interviews (See Chapter 5) and end each interview with the question, “who
else should I be speaking with?” This will help you identify and prioritize the rest
of your list.
Using Your Canvas
We will reference the Stakeholder Canvas throughout this book. It is intended

both as a map of your stakeholders and as a reference for engaging with them.
Prioritize stakeholders with the highest interest and influence for developing
trust (see chapter 1).
Leverage your understanding of your org’s structure to explain how your role
relates to others (see chapter 3) and to set expectations about what you will say
no to (chapter 6).
Use your understanding of the concerns of different stakeholder roles to em-
pathize with your stakeholders (see chapter 4) and to understand what they
need to get to yes (chapter 5).
Takeaways
The official org chart is of little use in determining who your real stakeholders
are. Do your research and make a stakeholder canvas that works for you.
Each organization has its own culture, often driven by the dominant depart-
ment or function. Figure out whether your company is sales-led, engineering-
led, or something else so you know where to begin.
Each company makes decisions in it’s own way. Figure out whether decisions
are typically directive, participative, democratic, or census-driven so you know
how to approach stakeholders.
There are functional, divisional, matrix, guild, and various forms of hybrid or-
ganizations. Know which you and your stakeholders inhabit and how to navi-
gate it.
Use the TIPS framework to categorize your stakeholders into people on your
“Team,” those “Impacted” by your decisions, “Power Players,” and “Subject Ex-
perts” and can interact with each according to their role.
Prioritize your stakeholders using the Power and Interest dimensions so you
know who to consult with early and often.
Complete and use your Stakeholder Canvas to prioritize and manage your list
of stakeholders.
1
It is worth noting, however, that before he was CEO of Apple, Tim Cook was in charge of oper-
ations and supply chain.
2
https://www.bain.com/contentassets/b514f7b986c949a0b9c24d3748fb4fef/bain-brief-hacking-
softwares-rule-of-40.pdf
3
*This is different from what is commonly called “product-led growth,” which is a strategy that
uses the product itself as the primary customer acquisition mechanism. Evernote, DropBox,
and Slack, for example, have a free tier you can sign up for on your own. Others have low-
cost tiers, free trial periods, or new customer credits. These company’s business models de-
pend on some percentage of their users opting to pay (or pay more) over time through in-
creasing usage or purchase of premium features.
4
https://www.bain.com/insights/decision-insights-8-shape-your-companys-decision-style-and-
behaviors/
5
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2015/07/13/the-5-types-of-organizational-struc-
tures-part-3-flat-organizations/?sh=46b961216caa
6
https://www.zapposinsights.com/about/holacracy
Support Sign Out
7
https://www.holacracy.org/explore/
©2022 O'REILLY MEDIA, INC. TERMS OF SERVICE PRIVACY POLICY
8
https://medium.com/universablockchain/decentralized-autonomous-organization-what-is-a-
dao-company-eb99e472f23e

The Real Org Chart - Aligned

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Real Org Chart - Aligned

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1.

The Real Org Chart | Aligned 07/12/22, 6:53 AM

Chapter 1. The Real Org Chart

A NOTE FOR EARLY RELEASE READERS

This will be the 2nd chapter of the final book.

Doing Your Research

As Product People, many of us have developed customer research skills. We know

In order to properly define your company’s culture and organizational structure,

and determine a tailored approach to each key stakeholder.

Your Organization’s Culture

Which Department Leads?

To diagnose the dominant culture in your organization, ask yourself these

Who Else Matters?

Organizations naturally gravitate to a certain decision-making style. Some are

Understanding your organization’s decision culture

Let’s break these four sections down:

Who: As in a Participative org, you’ll have a large and varied set of

Decisions may also be made differently under different circumstances. In The

WHICH DECISION STYLE IS BEST?

Culture is difficult to change, so understanding and working within it are neces-

Your Organization’s Structure

This is the traditional arrangement where marketing, sales, product, engineering,

As functional organizations grow, departments put up walls around themselves.

The organization is divided into teams by product, line of business, geography, or

As they grow, companies often turn to a divisional structure to break departmen-

Teams report to department heads as in a functional organization, but are as-

Flat organizations jettison top-down management altogether, attempting to em-

Companies are experimenting with other non-traditional structures, including ho-

We have not seen any real-world organizations where authority is eliminated or

Bruce worked as a product manager at a company like this. Taking a leadership

Who Matters by Structure

Type Who Matters Most Who Matters Less

Functional Your departmental leader Other functional

Divisional Your division leader Other divisional

Matrix Your functional leader Your product leader,

Guild Your product leader Your functional

Hybrid Your product or division leader, Other product or

The TIPS Framework

Players,” and “Subject Experts.”

Category People Who… Examples

Team Contribute to your product, including Developers, designers,

Impacted Experience the effects (good or bad) of Customers, channel

Power Can say yes or no to your product, to Influential executives;

Subject Have information you need to make Analysts, researchers,

We mentioned the leading department or function in the section on culture but

A technical architect Bruce worked with proposed he hire an approved outsourc-

In most organizations, you have to be mindful of what we call “approvers.” These

Categorizing Your Stakeholders

The Power Dimension

The Interest Dimension

What’s in the Canvas

Annotation for the Canvas

Download a Stakeholder Canvas template from our website at www.alignedbook.-

Building Your Canvas

Using Your Canvas

We will reference the Stakeholder Canvas throughout this book. It is intended

You might also like