Northzone Operator Workshops: Designing Organisations that Scale
with Ross Seychell Chief People Officer at Personio and Northzone portfolio advisor
Here at Northzone, we believe that world-class operators can play an invaluable role in supporting founding teams on their journey. As part of our Portfolio Operator Series, we recently welcomed Ross Seychell, CPO at Personio and Northzone advisor, on the topic of Designing Organisations that scale. We are sharing below some of his insights:
🚨Spoiler alert 🚨: turns out the topic of organisational design is way more than structures, org charts and names in boxes
How can we better define organisational design?
Organisational design is the systematic thinking, planning, alignment and execution on how you evolve your company. It’s the operating model for information, communication and decision making.
It’s a rhythm you build into your business planning and factors in:
- Company growth drivers & aspirations
- Investment stage
- Financials
- Workforce planning
- Hiring outlook
- Setting direction
Why is it important now?
- If you start early with core foundations, it scales easier as you grow
- Builds common thinking and language with intention you want
- Speeds up problem solving, decision making and information flow
- Derisks onboarding new leads and leaders — cultural aspect
- Encourages cross team planning and alignment through awareness
What are the key areas to consider?
- Philosophy 💡
- Start with your strategy or plan
- Articulate what type of company you want to be
- Agree on your non-negotiables upfront
- Start with your operating model before your org design
- Define where and how you work. And why.
2. Principles 📕
Write down your framework based on your philosophy
- Language
- Structure
- Job levels, titles, scope
- Team sizes, spans of support, layers
- Progression periods, job change, promotion
- Role or department evolutions, future timing & review frequency
- Triggers for future changes
3. Process 👷♀️
How to make it operational:
- Bi-annual review, but more often if earlier stage or hyper growth
- Role requirement outlook: 12–18 months
- Keep it simple and as light as possible
- Gather input from key people, not just leaders — works/doesn’t work
- Create career maps from your design work
- Make accessible for all to support faster onboarding
- Milestones for future job or organisational changes
