7 Organizational Design Courses to Follow in 2024
The pandemic and the Great Resignation have caused companies worldwide to recalibrate their business strategies. Sticking to outdated organizational structures can be detrimental to your company’s success. It can cause misunderstandings among roles and functions, creates siloes, and slows down decision-making.
To achieve organizational effectiveness, your organizational design must be aligned with the business strategy and industry it operates. Good organizational design and structure improve productivity and innovation. Let’s have a look at organizational design courses that will help you become an effective organizational design practitioner!
Contents
Why do an organizational design course?
Best organizational design courses
1. Organizational Design in the Organizational Development Certificate Program – AIHR
2. Organizational Design for Digital Transformation – MIT Sloan School of Management
3. Organization Design: A Foundational Course for Practitioners – IRL Cornell
4. Organization Design Comprehensive Certificate Course – ORG-ology
5. Organisation Design Masterclass Programme – European Organisation Design Forum
6. Advanced Organization Design – Hult / EF
7. Competitive Strategy and Organization Design Specialization – LMU
Why do an organizational design course?
Doing an organizational design course can boost your career in HR by providing you with an additional qualification as a proficient organizational design practitioner.
Not only does it give you the advantage over other HR professionals, but it also shows that you are genuinely committed to gaining more expertise and experience in fields relevant to your career.
What’s more, updating your organizational design knowledge gives you a competitive advantage in tackling current business challenges and trends.
Best organizational design courses
Ready for your organizational design course?
We’ve compiled the best organizational design courses to help you select the right program for you!
Please note that this list is compiled based on publicly available information. We have not tried the courses ourselves, with the exception of AIHR’s Organizational Design course.
1. Organizational Design in the Organizational Development Certificate Program – AIHR
Program overview:
If you’re looking for a course that will equip you with practical skills and knowledge to implement organizational design changes within your company, check out AIHR’s Organizational Design course.
It focuses on org design as one of the most common organizational development interventions.
You will learn how to:
- identify triggers of organizational design change,
- select the appropriate organizational design model and structure,
- apply the org design process in practice,
- and overcome common challenges.
The course will teach you how to conduct an organizational analysis and how to use data to develop, implement, and assess your organizational design program.
The full Organizational Development Certificate Program covers the following subjects:
- Organizational development
- Consulting & communication skills
- Organizational design
- HR operating models
- Organization culture
The program culminates in a capstone project to practice your newly-acquired OD knowledge and skills.
The course and the program are aimed at forward-thinking HR professionals who want to help their organizations to operate more effectively and adapt to the ever-changing external environment.
Format:
Self-paced video-based learning, with assignments and quizzes at the end of each module for learning check. Downloadable reading materials are also provided. The full certificate program takes about 30 hours to complete.
Program participants have access to the AIHR community discussions, as well as live events.
Cost:
The full Organizational Development Certificate Program costs $1,125.
You can get access to all certification programs for 12 months for $1,850.
2. Organizational Design for Digital Transformation – MIT Sloan School of Management
Program overview:
Organizational Design for Digital Transformation teaches the five key dimensions needed for a successful digital transformation. These dimensions serve as foundations for businesses interested in using new technologies for innovation.
And within the context of digital transformation, you will learn how to evaluate your workplace and develop an action plan to execute a digital change.
The course covers the following modules:
- Designing for digital success
- Achieving operational excellence
- Customer desires and digital solutions
- Digital design: enabling rapid innovation
- Creating an effective innovation culture
- Implementing digital transformation
This course is appropriate for mid-, senior-, and top-level managers, including C-suite executives. In short, leaders across sectors who are passionate about digital transformation and optimizing their digital business models will benefit from this course.
Format:
The course runs for 6 weeks, with 6-8 hours/week of self-paced online learning. It is delivered in various formats: interactive videos, practice quizzes, presentations, and assignments.
Participants can interact with their peers and learning facilitators through weekly discussion forums and small group discussions.
Cost:
The course costs $2,800.
3. Organization Design: A Foundational Course for Practitioners – IRL Cornell
Program overview:
This course provides core organizational design frameworks and methodologies. It offers tools to guide management through organizational change.
Topics covered in the Organization Design: A Foundational Course for Practitioners – IRL Cornell program include business analytics, change management, human capital management, leadership, and strategy.
At the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Align components of the strategy and the organization
- Gain and apply consulting and analytical skills, use the right tools to ask the right questions, diagnose root causes and build design criteria
- Provide organizational design alternatives: business needs they serve, pros and cons of different options, and forecast and plan for unexpected consequences
- Influence line clients while balancing a facilitative and expert role
Format:
This highly interactive, practical program is available online in four sessions (two days/week for two weeks). You can also attend a two-day, in-person workshop in New York. It offers examples from leading organizations, case studies, and applications to real participant situations.
Cost:
Course is $1,995.
4. Organization Design Comprehensive Certificate Course – ORG-ology
Program overview:
The International Organizational Design Community (ODC) accredited this comprehensive organizational design course from ORG-ology. Participants receive a thorough overview of essential organization design methodologies and guided consulting support to approach their present design challenges in their own organizations.
Topics covered include:
- Fundamental building blocks of organization design
- Diagnosing an organization
- Design tools
- Implementing an organization design
- Analyzing and framing the workplace need where participants present their unique workplace needs. They will give and receive feedback and ideas for how you can implement OD can be implemented.
After completing the program, participants will receive an ODC Certificate of Completion and an updated LinkedIn profile showing completed accredited organization design courses.
Format:
The course is delivered via virtual class sessions, independent reading, exercises, discussion, and consultation tailored to each individual’s workplace design issues. Participants are also expected to do independent work on top of virtual lessons.
The course comprises six half-day sessions (three sessions each week). Expected independent work is 12 hours, with 3 hours allotted for consultation.
You can also attend the course in person in New York and London with an adjusted schedule.
Cost:
The virtual course is $3,500. The in-person course cost is $4,000.
5. Organisation Design Masterclass Programme – European Organisation Design Forum
Program overview:
If you’re looking for a hands-on environment to learn organizational design with real case studies, this is the org design course for you.
This Organisation Design Masterclass gives learners foundational knowledge and skills to be credible org design practitioners.
The course covers the following modules:
- Seeing and thinking design – Introduction to organizational design
- Doing design – Learn different end-to-end design approaches, their advantages, and disadvantages
- Making design real – Using case studies for practical understanding.
- Living the new – Learn how to implement organizational design, using a hands-on approach in exploring different contexts and real case studies.
The program is open to everyone, from beginners to experienced. EODF members are entitled to a discount.
Format:
The course operates on a series of modules that build on each other. Modules are delivered on two consecutive days in half-day increments.
It is facilitated virtually via Zoom and available in English plus other European languages.
Cost:
The course costs €2,000 for members and €2,060 for non-members (includes first-year membership).
6. Advanced Organization Design – Hult / EF
Program overview:
This course prides itself on a robust organizational design methodology and frameworks.
As a learner, you will understand the organizational structure, job roles, linking processes, recruitment, incentives, decision authorities, accountabilities, and other dimensions of effective organizational design via case studies and live simulations. The Advanced Organization Design course integrates actual challenges faced by org design practitioners and real-world examples across different industries.
Participants will learn:
- Tools and frameworks to complete organizational design work at a business and functional level
- Assess the present organizational model and design of a business to determine opportunities to better align with the strategy
- Guide others through a collaborative org design process
This course is suitable for professionals and consultants who work in organization effectiveness and are involved in the organization and process design. This course is also recommended for business leaders interested in changing their organization for effective strategy delivery.
Format:
The course is available via online learning and face-to-face.
Online learning is delivered on a self-paced approach for busy participants for optimum learning.
Face-to-face classes are available in Dubai, Italy, London, or Hult’s Ashridge House campus, spread over three days.
Cost:
The online format costs £2,950, while face-to-face classes are worth £4,600.
7. Competitive Strategy and Organization Design Specialization – LMU
Program overview:
In the Competitive Strategy and Organization Design Specialization course, participants will learn:
- Organizational behavior in situations in which strategic decisions are interdependent
- Strategies to develop and retain customer base
- Internal and external corporate environments
- Agile organization design that can function in different environments
The course includes an applied learning project where participants can immediately apply theories to resolve real-life business problems.
By attending this course, participants will gain skills in organization design, strategic management, game theory, strategic thinking, competition (economics), pricing, marketing, competitiveness, business strategy, and organizational structure.
This is an intermediate-level course. Some related experience is required.
Format:
This course is available online, with a self-paced, flexible learning option. Most learners take about 5 to 7 months to complete the course with a commitment of 2 hours/week.
Participants are evaluated via practice quizzes and graded assignments.
After completing this course, learners can share their certificates on their LinkedIn profiles and printed resumes.
Cost:
The course is on Coursera. You can enroll for free and then pay $49/month to use the platform.
Over to you
When choosing an organizational design course, consider what exactly you want to learn and how you want to learn it. Review the topics the course covers to make sure they are relevant to your professional goals and/or the needs of your organization.
What’s more, it’s important to choose an organizational design course that fits your schedule and learning style. As for the financing, don’t forget to check with your organization if they can sponsor your course as part of their L&D benefit.
FAQ
Organizational design courses are a great way to gain org design skills and knowledge for HR professionals who want to help their organizations become future-proof in a dynamic business environment. Mid and top managers, as well as senior executives and business leaders who want to optimize how their organizations operate, will also benefit from an organizational design course.
Some courses are open to all professionals, whether entry-level or experienced. In contrast, others cater to senior and top-level managers. Choose a course that is appropriate to your level of knowledge and experience.
A good organizational design course will give you a comprehensive overview of how you recognize the need for an organizational design transformation, how to analyze and collect data about your organization, what the different organizational design models and structures are, how to apply the org design process in practice and overcome common obstacles.
Some courses concentrate on foundational skills and principles. In comparison, others focus on real-life situations and practical applications. Find a course that covers topics that interest you and are relevant to your role and organizational structure.
An effective organizational design practitioner can analyze the current state of organizational design within their business and propose and implement improvements to help the organization achieve its strategic goals.
They understand different types of organizational models and structures together with their pros and cons and can identify the best options for their company. An organizational designer helps manage the transformation through excellent stakeholder management and consulting.
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