Organizational structures

In addition to teams Clarity proposes several high level organizational structures to organize naturally occurring communities, such as communities by specialization, area of expertise and areas of interest, as well as artificial communities sometimes needed to achieve a particular goal within an organization.

Working Groups

Clarity Working Group is an ad hoc community created to achieve a particular goal, such as research, define and develop greenfield projects or special initiatives.

Working Groups are temporary constructs and are created for a limited, albeit not necessarily short period of time. Working Groups should be formed to achieve specific goals and dissolved or transformed once that goal is accomplished, for example, transforming into one or more permanent teams.

Working Groups can be created using existing or new organizational resources, with members sourced from existing teams using temporary re-assignment or split-time arrangements.

Governance and composition

Working Groups should be organized with individuals possessing the skills required to accomplish the goals for which the group was formed, as well as relevant stakeholders. Working Groups must have a designated leader, serving in the same capacity as team leader would, scoped to the working group.

Team members assigned to a working group should remain members of their respective teams and take part in all activities of their team to maintain working context and cohesion of that team.

Working Groups should have no more than 10-15 members at any given time, ideal size being between 5 and 10.

Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Groups, or SIGs, are permanent communities within the larger whole of an organization devoted to a defined set of interests and specializations within that organization. The goal of a special interest group is, among other things, to develop, further, maintain, improve, provide learning materials and issue best practices for a specific area of interest within the larger context of the organization.

Special Interest Groups, among other things, can work on issuing current best practices and other helpful guidelines that affect its area of interest, and should be delegated to lead initiatives within its area of interest, such as specialization-specific innovation and research, education and leadership of various improvement programmes.

Governance and composition

Special Interest Groups should be open to everyone with stakes within the area of interest of the group. Large special interest groups can optionally sub-divide into Chapters isolated by locality or number of members, reusing the governance model of the special interest group itself.

Participation rules are up to each organization to determine, and participation in SIGs can be either formal or informal (voluntary).

Organizations are free to define Special Interest Groups beneficial to the organization and also permit voluntary and natural creation of Special Interest Groups.

Special Interest Groups should be lead by a small core group of individuals with seniority in the respective area of interest of the group, for example, senior business analysts for business analysis SIG. The leadership formation of a Special Interest Group is called Interest Committee, and it is directly responsible for the operation of the group. Interest Committee should have between 2 and 5 members, depending on the size and complexity of the group.

Formal Special Interest Groups can be assigned to work directly with one or more designated senior executive members of the organization to ensure bi-directional communication is in place, and to allow for direct channel of communication to the executive management of the organization, thus allowing for greater potential impact of the working group on its area of interest and expertise.

For large SIGs where splitting the group into Chapters is required, each chapter should have a chapter lead that is responsible for the operation of that chapter within the larger scope of the Special Interest Group. Chapter leads should work closely with the governing Interest Committee of the group.