READING NOTE · UPDATED 2026
Restructure around the work that must move
This note about Ross Pettit’s presentation is a historical reference. For a current restructuring discussion, start with customer outcomes and decision dependencies rather than an organisation chart. Moving reporting lines can leave the same queues and unclear responsibilities in place. Examine the work before concluding that a structural change will improve delivery.
A practical next step
- Trace one outcome across team boundaries.
- Locate a decision that repeatedly waits.
- Test a clearer ownership policy before a large reorganisation.
This 2026 reading note is written by the Durnall editorial team. Richard Durnall’s original text follows below.
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Source capture · 2014-02-25 ↗I just got around to watching my colleague, Ross Pettit, present on Restructuring IT. The presentation lasts about 30 mins and is worth a watch.
Ross has an interesting history as he has worked as a COO, CIO and CTO prior to becoming a consultant. In my opinion he’s one of the few people in the world that understands the application of Agile and Lean concepts at an executive management level.
In his presentation Ross makes some interesting comparisons between our current IT divisions and the industrial model of production and scale, encouraging us to think of the Detroit of today as our IT Division of the future based on it’s current trajectory.
It makes a nice prelude to a presentation that I’m working on for events later in the year, primarily JAOO in Denmark (October 4-9). I want to look at the background of our organisational structures in IT and then talk about the interesting changes I’m seeing take place. I want to split things into concepts that I’ve seen repeatedly applied and succeed, concepts that are emerging and working well and concepts that are yet to be applied but are tipped to be solutions to outstanding problems. This will give me a platform to talk about concepts like change models, systems thinking, process re-engineering and design, organisational structure, incentivisation, strategy deployment, throughput accounting amongst other ideas.
If you watch Ross’s presentation then let me know what you think…