hardCase StudyDesignExecutiveLead
Your managers each have twelve reports and nobody is sure who owns what. Redesign the organisation.
Fix ownership before span of control. Map every service to one owning team, cut teams around what they can ship alone, then size management to fit, adding a layer only if your own span demands it. Price the new manager roles, move people in waves, and involve HR early, as obligations vary by country.
6 min readUpdated 2026-10-10
Answer
Short answer
Diagnose first. A span of control of twelve is a symptom; unclear ownership is usually the cause of the pain. Build an ownership map that gives every service one owning team, redraw team boundaries around what a team can ship alone, then size management to that structure. Add a management layer only if your own span would otherwise repeat the problem. Price the new roles, move people in waves, and involve HR before announcing anything.
Was this answer helpful?
Likely follow-ups
- Two of your eight current managers do not want to manage managers or keep a team of eight. What do you offer them?
- The ownership map shows six services that two teams each claim and four that nobody claims. How do you settle them in a week?
- Your CEO asks why the redesign adds seven managers when the stated goal was efficiency. How do you defend the cost?
- How do you stop the new group managers recreating the overload by taking on delivery management themselves?
Related questions
- Take-home: our engineering managers each have twelve reports and nobody is sure who owns what. Send us a written org design with the before, the after and how you would get there.hardAlso on org-design and span-of-control6 min
- You have twenty-five engineers in three teams and almost every feature needs all three of them. You have been asked to re-cut the organisation. How would you do it, and what does the change itself cost?hardAlso on org-design and reorganisation6 min
- You will grow from fifty to two hundred engineers in eighteen months. What breaks first, and what do you put in place before it does?hardAlso on management-layers5 min
- You must reduce the engineering organisation by fifteen percent. How do you decide, and how do you lead the people who stay?hardAlso on org-design6 min