Building Your Org Chart, Even When You’re Small

Think an organizational chart is only for big companies with layers of management? Think again. If you’re a solopreneur or you have a very small team, you may feel like an org chart is overkill, but it’s not.

In fact, it’s one of the most important tools you can implement in your business, even at an early stage. Here’s why: building out your organizational chart makes you strategically think about where the business is today and where it’s going tomorrow.

When you’re building out your organizational chart, think about all the tasks, responsibilities, and outcomes that you or your team are currently managing. What has to get done on a day-to-day basis to keep your business running and growing? As you consider the various outcomes and responsibilities, think about the role that should be performing those tasks. For example, if you’re currently handling your bookkeeping, your social media, your customer service calls, and sales, those are really 4 or more roles. When you’re just starting out or you have a small team, it is common to have one person performing these varying tasks. But as you grow, the ideal structure would have the tasks organized by skillset and efficiency, versus “who has time to do it.”

Even when you’re small, act big. Build out your organizational chart the way it would look when you reach your 5- or 10-year goal. If your ideal structure has 15 people, but right now it’s just you and your dog, that’s ok. Think strategically and understand what roles you will need. Then, when it’s time to add to your team, you’ll be able to review your org chart and think about the best role to fill first.

When building out your organizational chart, make sure you include the high-level responsibilities or outcomes of each role. Be careful not to include the same outcomes/responsibilities for more than one role. If two different roles are responsible for defining the marketing strategy, then who is really responsible? While you may have multiple people filling the same role (for example, multiple customer service reps), their roles should be differentiated by region or product line or some other method so that it is clear who is responsible for what.

Another key factor to consider is to make sure that you think about the roles you need in your company based on the things that need to get done, NOT the people you currently have. For example, if your office manager currently handles your marketing and your accounting tasks, in addition to ordering supplies, and coordinating events, that does not mean that these tasks should all be assigned to the same role in your “ideal company structure”. Think about the best way to organize tasks for the greatest efficiency as well as the ability to find the right skillset in one person to fill the role.

Having a clearly defined organizational chart early in your business can give you the freedom to start delegating tasks when you’re ready. You may not need to hire a full-time bookkeeper right away, but you could outsource the task for a part-time cost. Maybe you hate managing social media and you want to get that task off your plate as soon as possible, once you’ve defined what you need, it’s easier to do that when the business is ready.