Many a manager has wished for the opportunity to “blow up” their departmental organization chart and simply start over. Join one manager who did just that, taking an internet department in crisis from ruin to riches in one year, making sound critical decisions as well as some major mistakes along the way. This session will provide practical advice about building upper-level support for a departmental reorganization, developing departmental structures that can meet organizational strategic goals and objectives and creating flexible job descriptions that demand needed skill sets but can evolve over time.

1. NO BOUNDARIES
REVISING YOUR
ORGANIZATIONAL CHART:
DESIGNING A DEPARTMENT
THAT CAN REDESIGN YOUR
ORGANIZATION
Presented by:
David Nickelson
American Diabetes Association

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Brief Bio
• American Diabetes Association
– Diabetes.org (Nov. 2, 2009)
• Fund Raise (Special Events – Walk and Tour deCure)
• Donate (Direct, Honor, Memorial, etc.)
• Advocate (Federal, State and Local)
• Volunteer (Special Events and Programs)
– StopDiabetes.org (Oct. 29, 2009)
– ShopDiabetes.org (Nov. 1, 2010)
• Director, Internet Strategy & Operations
– 2007 – Present
– Began as “Online Services”

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The Yin and the Yang of Things
• The challenge
– Execute electronic communications and marketing within an
organization that is siloed, unable to cooperate and collaborate,
struggling with priorities, with different business units focused on
very different and sometimes competing objectives.
• The opportunity
– Visitors expect an organization’s web site to be a seamless,
transparent brand experience, integrating information delivery,
communications, and transactions into a coherent, easy-to-
understand, easy-to-use whole.

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Somewhere in the middle….
• …is a place where the numbers demonstrate that human
and technological integration can deliver better results.
• From that place, a department can model and even drive
organizational change and integration.
• What does it take?
– The right people,
– in the right places,
– on the right team,
– ready for anything.

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In the Beginning….
• First week on the job….

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In the Beginning….
• Second week on the job….

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And Then It Hits You….
• You have:
– Infrastructure problems
– Vendor problems
– Production line problems
– Data problems
– Personnel problems
They all need to be solved; RIGHT NOW.

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Tackling the Personnel Problem
• NPOs: the Internet and web sites are new
additions to marketing communications
• Responsibility often emerged organically
– From marketing department
– From communications department
– From scientific or medical department
– From IT department
– From other department
• “Hey, let’s put on a show! Is anyone here an
actor?”

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The Only Constant is Change
• A Variation on Moore’s Law:
• Online change happens at Internet speed
– New technologies emerge rapidly
– New skill sets to manage new technology emerge
almost as rapidly
– New opportunities based on skilled application of
new technologies emerge next
• Change at NPOs often happens at a
s…l…i…g…h…t…l…y
s…l…o…w…e…r
pace….

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The Situation
• Does this sound familiar?
– Staff supporting the Internet function:
• Have widely divergent skill sets
• Have little formal training
• Have biases toward a particular approach, software or
vendor
• Solve design and technical problems by “T&E”
• Have never managed software development projects or a
production line
• Are thoughtful, helpful, and committed to the mission

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What To Do?
• Assess
• Assert
• Act
• Produce
• Evolve

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Assess
1. What does your department need to
accomplish for the organization?
2. What tactics and tasks are needed to
accomplish departmental objectives?
3. What specific skill sets are required to
structure and manage the tactics, and
complete the tasks?

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How Assess?
• Objectives
– Start with strategic plan
• Assess how department can support key organizational
objectives
– Direct
– Indirect
• Assess how department could support goals more broadly if
reconfigured
– Review your supervisor’s objectives
– Develop “spill down” departmental objectives
– Develop testable, measureable goals:
– Traffic? Transactions? Conversions? Renewals?
Memberships? Revenue? Others KPIs?

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How Assess?
• Tactics and Tasks
– Develop list of specific projects designed to
meet objectives
– Develop list of projects or activities currently
provided/supported that do NOT meet
objectives (with associated costs)
– Develop short projects task lists; what are the
top five or six activities someone would need
to accomplish in order to meet key
objectives?

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How Assess?
• Skill Sets
– Revisit list of top projects
– What specific skill sets are required to structure and
manage the tactics, and complete the tasks?
– Technology skills
– Project Management skills
– Interpersonal/Communication skills
– Are these skill sets available elsewhere in the
organization?
– More cost effective to use a vendor?

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How Assess?
• Position Descriptions
– Group tasks and skill sets together logically
• e.g., do not put “Proficient w/ AJAX” in the same position as
“Develop project management plan and timeline with
stakeholders”
– Collect job descriptions
• From peers
• From Internet
• From your networks
• Focus on responsibilities and skills, not grade and title
– Develop draft position descriptions

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How Assess?
• Develop a draft Departmental Structure
– Focus on tasks, responsibilities and skills, not titles or
current FTE allocation
– Focus on developing a structure that models the
integration you believe the organization would benefit
from
– Build teams that can both consult and produce
– If more than one team, the teams should complement
and not compete

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How Assess?
• Develop a draft Departmental Structure
– Focus on tasks, responsibilities and skills, not titles or
current FTE allocation
– Focus on developing a structure that models the
integration you believe the organization would benefit
from
– Build teams that can both consult and produce
– If more than one team, the teams should complement
and not compete

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Assess
• DO NOT:
– Add in objectives that do not “roll up” to a key
organizational objective
– Discuss in detail with your staff
– Publically identify gaps in the department that you are
far from having the ability to fill
– Publically identify tasks that the organization needs
done that your current team cannot accomplish
– Try to assess whether current staff do or do not
possess particular skills

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Assert
• Assert:
– Your findings to your immediate supervisor
– Ask your immediate supervisor to elevate the issue if
needed
– Put findings in a written document or PowerPoint
– Carefully and thoughtfully seek out additional
sponsors throughout the organization (if they can
maintain confidentiality)
– Share your findings to the HR Department (with your
supervisors support)

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Act
• Once you have the support of your supervisor
and any other required executive staff:
– Talk with HR about best practices/ preferred approach
– Schedule a group meeting with your current staff
– Schedule 1-on-1 follow up meetings with current staff
– Set short, clear, appropriate deadlines
– Move quickly but fairly through the process

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How Act?
• Work collaboratively with HR from here
forward
– Ask for “best practices” or preferred approach
for notifying staff
– Ask about wages and benefits available to
potentially departing staff
– Ask for HR presence during group meeting
and final notification meetings

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How Act?
• Schedule a group meeting with your staff
– Start the meeting with your rationale for the dramatic change.
• Focus on facts, not on personalities or history
• Matter-of-fact delivery; do not introduce drama
– Share new departmental organization chart
• Explain how new structure will help department meet objectives
– Share new position descriptions
• Explain how each position will help department meet objectives
– Share process and timeline for making decisions

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How Act?
• Move Quickly:
– Schedule follow up meetings (if requested)
– Schedule interviews (if requested)
– Schedule notification meetings
• Suggested timeline: no more than 30 days.
• NB: Take time to acknowledge and grieve
individually and as a group; this is hard on
individuals, the group, and even the
organization.

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How Act?
• Review Internal Applicants
– Follow abbreviated but official recruitment
process; application, resume, interview
– For long term employees, ask about skills
they have acquired via formal or OTJ training
– Ask vendors for an honest and confidential
assessment of employee skill sets

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How Act?
• Move on quickly
– Post open positions
– Recruit quickly
– Hire right
• Suggested timeline: no more than 60 days
• Welcome new staff; instill and revisit vision of
new department and new role with new
department and each new hire regularly

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Produce
• Meet with key stakeholders to explain why the
restructure, introduce new staff, new roles, and
new responsibilities
– Do not badmouth or scapegoat; stick to the facts from
your assessment
– Revisit history only to explore how newly available
personnel and skills sets could have led to different
outcome
• Execute top tasks noted in assessment
• Meet or exceed stated objectives

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Evolve
• Never stop reassessing current structure and
positions
• Anticipate the future and look for
development opportunities for current staff
• Regularly scan and assess skill sets in other
departments; is there duplication, or could
there be a logical collaboration that benefits
both departments, and the organization as a
whole?

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The Juicy Stuff: A Case Study
• American Diabetes Association
– “Online Services”
• Department first appeared in 2002
• Staff chosen from many different departments
• Diabetes.org: web site and message forums
• Eight FTEs
– Three Internet Specialists
– One Event Specialist
– One Online Book Marketing Specialist
– One Online Editor
– One Director
– One Open Position
• Most staff with personal connection to the disease
– Open position due to death of employee from disease

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First Two Weeks
• Vendor Summit
– 47 direct and indirect vendor services and
contracts @ one meeting
• CEO left
• Editor (Assoc. Dir.) gave notice
• Special Events season was beginning,
including beta test of new challenge event

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State of the Department
• Staff were:
– Traumatized
– Demoralized
– Disorganized
– Paralyzed
• Reporting lines were drawn to ensure raises and
advancement, not to structure the work
• Positions were referred to not by function, but by
name of employee

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Other challenges….
• New VP of Communications
• Marketing EVP with no online marketing experience
• Interim CEO
• Nascent Marketing department
• …and of course, still had….
– Infrastructure problems
– Vendor problems
– Production line problems
– Data problems
– Personnel problems

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Starting the Restructure Process
• Began assessment
– Stakeholder meetings: “What do you need
from my team?”
– Skill set needs evaluation
– Developed new departmental structure
– Developed new position descriptions
– …and…

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Déjà vu All Over Again….

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Fast Forward
• After only…
– 18 months
– Two CEOs
– Departure of Multiple EVPS, including Marketing &
Communications EVP, and
– Two partial and ultimately doomed departmental
restructures
• … a sponsor willing to support the complete
process

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How We Rolled
• In 90 days:
– Team meeting
– Individual meetings
– Interviews
– Notifications and departures
– Posting and recruiting
– Filled all positions with qualified perm or temp
personnel
– Meetings with key stakeholders

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What We Looked Like
• Internet Strategy & Operations
– Director
• eCRM Team
– Associate Director
» Engineer
» Trainer
» Web Campaign Producer
» Web Campaign Producer
• Web Production and Content Team
– Associate Director
» Web Producer
» Web Producer
• Applied Web Metrics
– Manager
» Data Manager
• Project Coordination
– Senior Project Manager

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Why We Looked That Way
• Teams reflect the work and skills needed to complete a
successful project
• Project Management (Structure & Scope)
• eCRM (Build & Operate)
• Web Production & Content (Build & Operate)
• Applied Web Metrics (Measure & Improve)
• Structure forces integration, collaboration, and
cooperation
• Design, personnel, and process are starting point for
larger organizational discussion

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Where We Are Today
• Teams, structure, and works processes have continued to evolve
– Marketing and communications departments combined
– New SVP of Marketing Communications
• More proactive, less reactive
• More consultation, less direct implementation
• Distributed content development
• Increased integration, collaboration and cooperation
• Higher stakeholder satisfaction
• Significantly shorter project, campaign, and edit cycle times
• More productive , engaged and satisfied staff
• New organizational collaboration groups and processes are emerging
• Now have more work than we ever imagined….

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Reflections….
• Team had to shift priorities from development to production
– Focus on understanding, measuring, and improving departmental online
business cycles
– Constant shifting to accommodate competing – though potentially
complementary – departmental business cycles into a single overall business
cycle
• Consultative role struggles to breathe under production load
• Constant educational process
• Some areas still under-resourced
• Change process not moving quickly enough to engage and retain talented
staff
• When the organization starts to make the kind of changes you have been
pushing for, you must continue to support them, no matter what that brings

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Lessons Learned
1. Don’t give up
2. Do not openly identify problems that you do
not have the means to address
3. Move quickly when you get your chance
4. Be humane and fair
5. Wait to hire the best people you can afford
6. The first 90 days are the hardest, but just
barely
7. Communicate and model

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Contact Information
David Nickelson, PsyD, JD
Until 10/29/2010:
Director, Internet Strategy & Operations
American Diabetes Association (www.diabetes.org )
dnickelson@diabetes.org
703-299-5522
Starting 11/15/2010:
Director of Digital Engagement
Siteworx, Inc. (www.siteworx.com)
dnickelson@siteworx.com
703-964-1700
Twitter: DrDNickelson
LinkedIn: David Nickelson