Part of the challenge to design a "human institution to create a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty" is shaping it's organizational structure. The structure is a critical success factor that limits the organizations output:

"organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations" (Conway's Law)

While the organization can turn out to be an impediment for changing direction, it may also be an asset of its own that outlives pivots.

So how may we grow the organizational structure of a startup, so that it:

• optimizes flow of work
• does not block change and yet creates enough stability for people to have fun at work
• distributes authority to allow delegation of decision making to the place with the highest density of information?

We will use an agile game as a tool to co-actively learn about the art of growing a startup organization. Part of the game are events that trigger organizational change. The best set up for the session would actually be to work on a real world example, so prepare your story of an event that caused change of an organization. Sharing your story is a chance to get some bright people working co-actively on your most pressing organizational problem. Just contact me, in case you want to discuss your story before the session via twitter: @haaslab.

This session could be a follow up to Mike Leber's 'Leadership for Startups' to get our hands dirty with some practical exercises.