An organizational chart (also known as a org chart) is a visual, hierarchical representation of reporting structure, roles, and relationships — typically within a company.
An org chart, or organizational chart, is a diagram that breaks down the structure of an organization and shows the relationships between people. It can be used to show hierarchical relationships between managers and their direct reports, or to view cross-functional relationships between different roles working on the same teams.
You can get creative and structure your org charts in different ways to represent these relationships, but the most common display is through a flow diagram, that represents reporting line and hierarchical relationships. Start with a shape for the Manager role, and then connect a shape to this role for each direct report. Repeat this down each level within the organisation, until you have the full view.
For a cross-functional team view, you’d want to colour code the different disciplines within your team structure, and then group these different roles together. This type of view disregards hierarchy and reporting lines. It shows who’s working with who and on what.
An org chart, or organizational chart, is essential to every business. It helps to improve internal communication and collaboration across teams and across the business. People can look at your org chart and determine who they need to talk with in different parts of the business, based on their role and position within the structure.
It can help you understand your internal structures and where changes may be need in different parts of the business to achieve your goals. For example, you’ll be able to visualise quickly the size of your R&D org to your Sales orgs; or what teams may be lacking certain disciplines that could impact their work, like a product team not having a designer.