Every organization requires a solid structure to operate effectively. While traditional hierarchical setups establish clear decision-makers, they often leave employees yearning for constant guidance and approval. In contrast, self-managed organizations embrace a more fluid hierarchy, empowering individuals to take charge of their tasks and contribute to the company's overall success. In this article, we dive into the structure of K15t, shedding light on why we have self-organized teams and the reasons behind our successful implementation.

Facing Reality: Restricted by Traditional Structure

Originally, K15t was structured in the traditional hierarchical way. It worked for a while, but as the company grew bigger, it became apparent that this wasn’t the best way for us to work. Communication was bottlenecked and inefficient, and ideas and messages got lost in the chain of command. It was complicated to get anything done, and as a startup, it was crucial that things could be completed quickly. As K15t started to grow larger, it was apparent that the traditional organization method wasn’t ideal for us.

Implementing a Solution

After reading the book Reinventing Organizations by Fredic Laroux, our company was inspired. We turned our inspiration into action and wandered into uncharted territory: self-organization. We approached the situation slowly, seeking out guidance from experts and engaging in workshops. This helped lay the foundation for our transition and ensured that everyone was focused on a common vision. It wasn’t an overnight switch, and we find ourselves still ironing out certain details. Nonetheless, this was a breakthrough for K15t.

“It is work in progress, and it probably always will be.”

- Stefan Kleineikenscheidt, CEO

Debunking Self-Organization

When you hear “self-organized,” what comes to mind? It may sound chaotic, but we have a system in place. It’s more of a fluid, ever-evolving type of balance. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of self-organization, we recommend reading the article by Yuvika Iyer about self-organized teams to summarize it.

How Does This Look

Instead of operating through a traditional chain of command, we go off a much different structure. Everything is intertwined, yet each area plays an individual part.

• Strategic Center - The strategic center or coordination team serves as a team responsible for overall strategic alignment within K15t, encompassing vision work, market strategy, culture, and people development. This includes the company founders and some senior colleagues.

• Leadership - Individuals in leadership act as connectors between the strategic center and various teams. This is not a defined team itself, but members join or leave as needed.

• Teams - Teams are the interdisciplinary building blocks of K15t’s organizational structure. Every colleague at K15t is a member of a single team. There are teams for customer success and app development, marketing, and internal service teams for the company’s operation.

• Circles - Circles are cross-functional groups of people who focus on specific topics across teams, such as Design, Product Management, Product Marketing, UX, Engineering, and more. Circles provide long-term, lightweight structures that promote expertise in specific areas while ensuring coordination and cooperation across teams.

• Pop-up Teams - Pop-up teams are a special type of team that form spontaneously to address specific initiatives or goals. These teams are temporary and disband once the initiative or goal has been successfully achieved. Or, in special cases, they can evolve into a permanent team.

Fun Fact:

The Orderly Databases app was created in a pop-up team. It has since been acquired by Atlassian, and is one of our greatest success stories. It is now recognizable as Confluence Databases.

The Nitty-Gritty

Who exactly calls the shots? How are important decisions made?

In most cases, the decision making involves these 5 steps:

1. Identify what the decision is about (implications, scope).

2. Find the stakeholders of the decision (including experts who can help with the decision).

3. Get their feedback and advice.

4. Make the decision.

5. Communicate the decision to everyone.

We also follow the Tree Model.

What is communication like? How do we keep everyone on the same page?

Instead of communications trickling down from the head of the company to everyone else, we use a very transparent and open system. Shared documentation is our biggest asset here. By utilizing tools like our intranet on Confluence, Slack, Miro boards, Trello, and more, it’s possible for anyone to reach everyone. We also have regular team alignment meetings, and of course, our quarterly Team Week. Alignment is the gravitational pull that keeps everyone from floating away in different directions.

How do we overcome new challenges? Because we work in a wvorld where things are always changing, the structure of our teams has to be flexible. Luckily, self-organization allows for that. It is everyone’s responsibility to recognize when things aren’t going how they should. Communication is key- as always. We use workshops to identify and resolve challenges. These workshops are facilitated by team members with more experience, and who have participated in facilitation programs. So far, there hasn’t been a hardship that we haven’t found a solution to.

Our Journey So Far

It’s important to recognize that this type of structure doesn’t work for every individual or every company. We can’t tell you if it’s the right step for you to take, but we can say that it’s been groundbreaking for us.

Our transition to self-organization wasn’t perfect, but perfection was never our goal. Many issues that arose were solved with stronger communication, transparency, and documentation. There are still issues that come up, but we focus on working together to find solutions. It’s a work in progress.

The spirit of experimentation has always been alive and well at K15t, and this situation is no different. We remain committed to adaptability, constantly evolving and growing as we embrace the future: a perfect example of how we #CareAndCommit.

More on This

If this structure sparks your interest, you can read more about self-organization to understand a company-wide agile transformation. A great starting point would be the book that inspired us, Reinventing Organizations by Fredic Laloux. You can also check out this video to listen to one of our product managers explain self-managed teams at K15t.

Read more about this topic: 7 Strategies for better group decision making