Introduction to Org Charts

Why a well-structured Org Chart is key to understanding how your company operates and how it can scale.

Written by Tommy Mains

Updated at December 13th, 2024

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Table of Contents

What Is the Org Chart Tool? What Is a Seat? How a Structured Org Chart Supports Your Organization Documenting Multiple Team Members In the Same Seat How the Org Chart Supports Ninety's Other Tools Ninety's Default Seats Helpful Resources Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What Is the Org Chart Tool?

Use the Org Chart tool to structure your company's core functions to help you get the Right People in the Right Seats to achieve your Vision.

What Is a Seat?

A Seat is a position with function-specific roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities. We use the Org Chart to provide an overview of the various Seats, and their lines of reporting that we need to operate. 📖 Learn more.

 

 

How a Structured Org Chart Supports Your Organization

Efficient and effective organizational structure establishes a solid foundation for all your team members to fully understand their:

  • Roles — The titles and subtitles describing the functions of their Seat.
  • Accountabilities — How success in the Seat is measured, to whom you're accountable, and the team(s) you may be accountable for. 
  • Responsibilities — The specific duties required of each of the Seat's roles.

 

Roles and Responsibilities Examples

Roles and responsibilities usually occur in pairs, with roles associated with a titled function of a Seat and responsibilities linked tasks and processes. Below are a couple of examples of a role and its responsibilities for a given Seat — most Seats have multiple roles.

  • Visionary
    Role: Research and development.
    Responsibility: Creative roadmap for one product a month.
     
  • Head of Sales
    Role: Turn qualified leads into customers.
    Responsibility: Develop, refine, and perfect sales strategy.
  • Head of Operations
    Role: Deliver the final product on time and within requirements.
    Responsibility: Smooth barriers and maintain a strong communication strategy.
 
 

 

 

When every Seat is described by its roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities (RARs), the Org Chart can be used to review and hire personnel.

Given half a chance, people are keen to get on with their work, and to have work to get on with. What is missing is an adequate organizational framework within which to work and to cooperate with each other.
 

-Elliot Jaques, Requisite Organization
Excerpted from our 90u Library Guide, On Structure

 

Documenting Multiple Team Members In the Same Seat

Many organizations have several team members who share the same roles, accountabilities, and responsibilities. You can assign multiple users to the same Seat in your Org Chart simply by adding additional users to a Set.

  1. Click Org Chart from the left navigation
  2. Click Edit Chart.
  3. Click the person icon under the Seat's title.
  4. Search for and select a user to add to the Seat (changes save automatically).

For example, you may have multiple sales representatives who serve similar clients and are accountable to the same leader and KPIs. You can simplify your Org Chart by adding all of them to the same Seat.

 

How the Org Chart Supports Ninety's Other Tools

The Org Chart provides clarity around who is responsible for each facet of your company. Ninety promotes the “Structure first, people second” approach to organizing your departments, teams, and seats.

Click through the tabs below to learn more about how the Org Chart tool supports some of our other core tools.

Data

For team members to be accountable to their Seat's functions, we recommend each Seat have at least one to three KPIs. Keep track of these KPIs in the Data tool to measure performance and quickly create Issues when a KPI is off track.

 
 

1-on-1

To create a Quarterly or Annual Discussion in the 1-on-1 tool, users need to have a Seat reporting to them in the Org Chart.

 
 

 

Ninety's Default Seats

When you first create your company in Ninety, we'll populate a simple Org Chart with four departments and a total of six Seats. Depending on your current size, you may need to add more Seats immediately or have some of your team members fill more than one Seat.

  1. Visionary
  2. Operator
  3. Marketing
  4. Sales
  5. Operations
  6. Finance

Use these default Seats to help you organize the structure that works best for you.

 

Helpful Resources

From the 90u Library:

From our blog:

 

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do I create, save, and share draft charts?

To create a draft chart, you'll need manager or higher level permissions:

  1. Click Org Chart from the left navigation.
  2. Click Drafts at the top of the page.
  3. Click Create new.
  4. Click Create at the bottom of the popup after filling out the necessary information.
  5. Click the name of your draft chart from the My Charts list to begin editing.

Draft charts save automatically as you make changes. When you're done editing, you can click Back to Charts to return to the previous page.

To share a draft chart:

  1. Click the ellipses on the chart's row from the My Charts list.
  2. Click Edit Details from the dropdown.
  3. Click the Choose teammates dropdown in the details card.
  4. Select the desired team members from the list.
  5. Click Save.
 
 

What if I don't have an Operator or Visionary Seat to fill?

This is a very common request and requires a bit of a workaround.

  1. Click Org Chart from the left navigation.
  2. Click the Edit Chart button.
  3. Click the ellipses on the top right of the Visionary Seat's card.
  4. Click Hide Visionary Seat from the dropdown.

Now you can make the top Seat the title and function that works for your organization.

 
 

 

seat right people right seats roles and responsibilities accountability chart responsibiliites chart chart delegate and elevate

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