1: Introduction to The Emerging Shape of Design Orgs
Originally published 19 August 2021; light revision 1 June 2025
Laying an organizational foundation
As a consultant focused on the org design of design orgs, I work across a variety of contexts—established businesses (banks, retail); software as a service (enterprise software); scale-ups (pre-IPO and growing); start-ups. And repeatedly over the past couple of years, I've found myself drawing some variation of the following generic digital product design org chart (click/tap for full size).
Let's look at the various bits.
Updated on Jun 9, 2025