New Organisation Charts, Old Inefficiencies: Why Structural Reforms Alone Change Nothing

A new organisation chart changes the boxes on paper, but rarely the work being done inside those boxes.

In many administrations, reform starts with structure. Departments are merged, responsibilities reassigned, hierarchy levels cut or added. After months of implementation, a new organisation chart emerges, often cleanly designed, clearly structured, with fresh names for departments and sections. And yet, staff soon report the same waiting times, the same coordination loops, the same duplicated work as before. Only the names of the people involved have changed.

The structure is not the problem staff actually feel

Anyone who reorganises an administrative unit without first understanding how the actual work runs there is mostly changing the wrapping. An application that used to pass through four pairs of hands, because no one wanted to take responsibility for checking it was complete, will often still pass through four pairs of hands after the reform, just in a new department now. The cause was never in the drawing of the organisation chart, but in the way tasks, checks and approvals were actually organised. As long as that level stays unexamined, the inefficiency simply moves along with it.

This shows up especially clearly in processes that cross several units: approval procedures, procurement, personnel matters. A new allocation of responsibilities can even extend waiting times if the informal shortcuts that had built up over years disappear with the reform, without anyone documenting the underlying process and deliberately redesigning it.

Understand the processes first, then adapt the structure

Michael Ahr describes exactly this point as the starting point of his methodology in his book Verwaltungsmodernisierung mit Methode: a transformation that understands before it changes, that examines structures before it optimises processes, and that identifies potential before it deploys resources. This sequence is not a methodological detail. It is the decisive difference between a reform that lasts and one that has to be corrected again shortly after.

In practice, this means: before a new organisation chart is drawn, it is worth taking an honest stock of the existing processes. Who handles which step, with what information, in what order, with what waiting time in between? Where do gaps occur because a file has to be transferred from one system to another? Where are there checks that grew historically but no longer add real value? These questions can be answered with reasonable effort, for example through structured conversations with the staff handling the cases, a simple process mapping exercise, or an analysis of existing case numbers and processing times.

An approach for your own administration

For senior managers planning a restructuring, this leads to concrete steps. First, name the core processes affected, rather than starting straight away with the organisational structure. Next, map the actual course of each process, including the points where delays or queries occur. Only then ask which organisational allocation actually supports these processes, and which does not. A new structure follows the processes, not the other way round.

The involvement of the staff who carry out the processes day to day matters here too. They know where a case actually gets stuck, often better than any level of management. A structural reform developed without them will inevitably carry blind spots.

The test for any planned reform

A simple check helps to test a reform plan before implementation: does the new structure solve a concrete problem in the workflow that has been identified and documented beforehand, or does it merely change responsibilities without anyone being able to describe which process actually improves as a result? If this question cannot be answered clearly, the reform is not yet ready for implementation, regardless of how convincing the new organisation chart looks on paper.