What is an organizational chart?
An organizational chart is a graphical representation of the relationships and hierarchies between departments, positions, and people within an organization. It is an important tool that can visually display the organization's hierarchical relationships, division of responsibilities, and management systems, thereby helping people better understand the organization's operations and internal structure.
Here are some use cases for organizational charts:
- Clearly present the organizational structure: The organizational chart can visually display the hierarchical relationship between various departments, teams and positions within the company, allowing people to understand the structure of the entire organization at a glance.
- Division of responsibilities and authorities: Through the organizational chart, people can understand the specific responsibilities and functions of each department and position, as well as the collaborative relationships between various levels. This helps to clarify the division of responsibilities of each position and avoid duplication or omission of responsibilities.
- Recruitment and talent management: Organizational charts can help human resources departments better plan recruitment needs and develop recruitment plans based on vacancies and development needs in the organizational structure. At the same time, it can also help management better manage and cultivate talents.
- Decision-making and communication: Organizational charts can help leadership make better decisions and plans, and understand the operations and staffing of various departments. In addition, it can also serve as a communication tool to allow employees to better understand the company's strategies and goals.
- Growth and Expansion: As a company grows and expands, the organizational structure may change. With an organizational chart, it can be more easily adjusted and optimized to accommodate new business needs and development directions.
What types of organizational charts are there?
Hierarchical: The most common type of organizational chart, showing the relationships between departments, positions and personnel at all levels in a hierarchical manner. Typically, the top level is the company's senior management, and the bottom level is the entry-level employees. This graphic features a tree-like structure that clearly shows the connections and division of responsibilities between different levels.
Matrix: A matrix organization chart shows the cross-relationships between different departments and projects. In this kind of graphics, people may belong to different departments or project groups at the same time, emphasizing cross-department collaboration and resource sharing.
Functional: The functional organizational chart classifies different positions and departments according to different functional divisions. This helps create links between different functions and promotes specialization in specific areas.
Geographic type: This type of graph divides departments and branches according to geographical location and is suitable for organizations that operate across regions. It can show the distribution and management structure of different regions.
Product line type: The product line organization chart is based on product lines or business areas, showing the departments and personnel of each product line, which helps to understand the connections and collaboration between each product line.
Dotted line organizational chart: Emphasizes the flexibility of projects and functions and does not stick to traditional hierarchical relationships. People can temporarily form teams as project needs arise to adapt to different work needs.
5 professional software for efficient drawing
Of course, it is also a method to directly use the graphics functions that come with Word and WPS to draw the organizational structure chart. However, anyone who has used it knows that the graphics library and graphic styles are a bit lacking, and the resulting graphics will be somewhat lacking in "exquisiteness". "feeling", if you are like me and care about the precision and beauty of graphics, do you want to know about these 5 professional drawing software?
(1) boardmix whiteboard
Multifunctional online drawing tool: boardmix is a multifunctional online drawing tool with a special emphasis on team collaboration and creativity.
Rich graphic elements and templates: It provides rich graphic elements and professional organizational chart templates to help you graphically present hierarchies and relationships.
Real-time collaboration and comments: Boardmix supports real-time collaboration. Team members can edit together, and can also comment, paste, vote, audio and video communication, etc. on charts for efficient collaborative drawing.
（2）Lucidchart
Online drawing tool: Lucidchart is an excellent online drawing tool with excellent user interface and ease of use.
Rich Organization Chart Templates: It provides numerous Organization Chart templates and a large number of graphic elements that enable you to create professional-looking charts.
Powerful collaboration function: Lucidchart supports real-time collaboration, and multiple people can edit it at the same time to jointly build a perfect organizational chart.
（3）Visual Paradigm
Professional modeling tool: Visual Paradigm is a professional modeling tool suitable for drawing complex organizational charts.
Rich functions and templates: The software provides a wide range of functions and organizational chart templates to help you model and design accurately.
Multiple modeling methods: Visual Paradigm supports multiple modeling methods to meet different types of organizational chart needs.
（4）Draw.io
Open source online drawing tool: Draw.io is an open source online drawing tool popular for its simplicity and ease of use.
Various predefined graphic elements: It provides a variety of predefined graphic elements, suitable for quickly drawing different types of organizational charts.
Fast drawing: Draw.io emphasizes fast drawing and is suitable for situations where diagrams need to be constructed in a short time.
（5）Creately
Online collaborative drawing tool: Creately is an online collaborative drawing tool, suitable for teamwork to draw organizational charts.
Multiple templates and symbol libraries: It provides a variety of templates and symbol libraries to enable teams to quickly build clear organizational charts.
Intuitive interface: Creately features an intuitive interface that allows you to easily draw and edit diagrams, regardless of your drawing experience.
How to make a company organizational chart?
Back to the topic, as mentioned above, the organizational chart plays an important role in showing hierarchical relationships, division of responsibilities, personnel communication, etc. So how to make an organizational chart? Let’s take the process of drawing the organizational chart of the company’s marketing department on boardmix as an example.
Step 1: Gather information and prepare
First, collect information about the marketing department, including job titles, responsibilities and hierarchical relationships. Understand the collaborative relationships and management levels among various positions.
Step 2: Log in to boardmix and create a new project
Log in to your boardmix account and enter the workspace. Click "New" to create a new whiteboard project for drawing the organizational chart.
Step 3: Map major positions and departments
Starting at the top, map the major job titles in the marketing department, such as "Marketing Director" and "Marketing Manager."
Step 4: Add subdepartments and positions
For each position, click the "Graph" tool on the left toolbar to draw the subdepartments and corresponding positions below it. For example, for "Director of Marketing," there might be a "Marketing Strategy Department" and an "Advertising Promotion Department."
Step 5: Draw connecting lines and relationships
Click the "Line" tool on the left side of the toolbar, or directly use the shortcut key "L" to connect positions and departments to express superior-subordinate relationships. The arrow should point to the superior department or supervisor.
Step 6: Add employee information
Under each position, use the Text Tool ("T") to add the employee's first name or job title to be more specific about who holds each position.
Step 7: Share and collaborate
On boardmix, you can invite team members to collaboratively edit and view your organizational chart. By sharing the link, the web page can be used to view, comment on and participate in the drawing process in real time without downloading.
Step 8: Review and Adjust
Carefully review the drawn organizational chart to ensure that positions, departments, and relationships are accurate. Make adjustments and modifications to graphics and text as needed.
In this way, you will get a complete company organizational chart~ Above we introduced in detail what an organizational chart is, the types of organizational charts, what software is suitable for drawing organizational charts, and how to draw a company organizational chart. It’s hard to understand on paper, but if you think it’s useful, you can try it yourself~