Fundamentals of Organizational DesignCornell Course

Organizations are so entrenched in our everyday lives that we often don't notice them. Each of us exists within a unique ecosystem of organizations that include where we work, shop, go to school, volunteer, acquire healthcare, and manage our personal and professional lives. Becoming aware of the ways that these organizations are structured and the choices behind these structures are fundamental skills necessary for organizational design.

In this course, you'll analyze an organization in terms of how it is structured, what it does, and how it interacts within the larger ecosystem. You'll develop ways of thinking about these categories and the language you'll need to describe them, whether you are focusing on organizations in your immediate neighborhood or global organizations. Description is the first step. You will also develop the analytical skills to explain, from an organizational design perspective, why some organizations function more successfully than others so you can anticipate future changes that may create a need for redesign.

Organizational design professionals use different models to assess organizations. In this course, you'll practice using the Congruence Model to assess whether an organization is well designed. By combining all the skills you develop in this course, you will be able to look critically at organizations to identify their key components, understand how they are related, and assess whether the organization would benefit from a redesign.