“Organization Dimensions” explained

This article explains what is meant by the term “Organization Dimensions”, providing examples of these being used in Orgvue.

Organization Dimensions are the building blocks of the organization. Examples of typical organization dimensions include:

• Function
• Geography
• Business Unit / customer segment/ product and service line

At a macro level, organization dimensions inform the design of the operating model. Models are often described in terms of the dimensions which are dominate, for example ‘functional models’ and ‘geographic models’ or the ways in which different dimensions are accommodated in ‘hybrid’ or ‘matrix’ models. Looking across CEO reporting lines we typically see a mix of functional, geographic, and business unit leaders.

Dimensions are fundamental in both organization analysis and organization modelling.

When conducting Organizational Analysis, a recommended starting point is to understand the distribution of resources across organization dimensions. The Organization Dimensions Story Pack (example slide below) is provided to address this requirement.

Example illustration: Distribution of resources across organization dimensions

With this initial insight, you’re quipped to understand whether investment is being made in the right areas to deliver planned business ambition.

Dimensions are also used to:

• Define the sub-groups used for reporting key measures of organizational effectiveness; and
• “Slice-and-dice” overall totals to reveal differences in performance across the organization on measures of organizational effectiveness (i.e., there are areas of good performance and where action is needed)

Example illustration: Split key measures by dimension subgroups, then “slice-and-dice”


Orgvue’s template packs for organizational analysis provide slides which split key measures by dimension sub-group, with pages enabling you to rapidly ‘slice-and-dice’ the visualizations.

Best practice is to ensure subgroups are applied consistently across the organization. When considering the dimensions appropriate for your analysis, explicitly consider:

• What subgroups are established for reporting operational and financial performance?
• Does my dataset contain the required properties and property values to define these subgroups? If not, can this be sourced?
• What is the ‘Goldilocks’ requirement: too much sub-group detail can lead to ‘information overload’, but with insufficient detail insight lacks precisions

In Organization Modelling, organization dimensions are used to define positions in the ‘to-be’ organization, for example:

• The Business Unit it will belong to part of
• The function it will be part of
• It’s geographic location.

Example illustration: Specifying properties in the Org Modelling Guided Experience



Without sufficient data governance, data quality issues can emerge. For example, property values for country can include US, USA, America. When data quality is not maintained, accuracy of insight is at risk, personal credibility is at stake. Using Lookups is recommended as an effective element in data governance (see How do I add a lookup?)

See also

• How to get from raw data to actionable insight
• Organization Dimensions Story Pack
• Specify modelling properties