Organizational Development of Innovative Functions

For a number of railway organizations, we were responsible for either developing a brand new team to perform a specific function that had hitherto not been performed in-house, or for reviewing an existing group that has had its regular function and responsibilities transformed so fundamentally that a new organizational structure was needed for it to be effective.  In one case, we took a unit that had various data-related responsibilities such as surveying, reporting, datamining, big data analytics, regulatory compliance, and quantitative model development, and reorganized it such that the routine data production activities were separated from the research and development activities, and from the I.T. support functions that provided the computer infrastructure on top of which all of those activities took place.  For another group, we designed the decentralized organization that would together support the enterprise geographic information system (GIS) by recommending that a small core companywide GIS group was supplemented by designated representatives (both existing and new staff) embedded within various other functional units that would offer the more specialized skills required within their department (e.g. land surveying, demographic analysis, engineering, archiving) but also serve as liaison to the central unit.  In another case, we developed an industrial engineering and resource review function from scratch.  We also worked on an organization plan that distributed certain compliance responsibilities to subject matter experts within the appropriate areas with one manager serving as overall coordinator.  In many of these cases, our organizational plan was implemented, usually with minor modifications, by the business.  In one last case, we were tasked with documenting the workflow, roles and responsibilities, and business processes of an existing organization with many ad-hoc and miscellaneous tasks in a detailed and defensible way, to forestall efforts by outside forces to dismantle the unit.   We ultimately contributed to their success in preventing that team from being broken up, and helped others achieve a better understanding of that group.