Business Execution Canvas® Foundations · Lesson A6
Design
Design is the third pillar: building the organisation to deliver what it has promised. It treats the organisation as three systems that have to fit together: the people, the way the work is done, and the money. Change one without the others and the old problem comes back in a new shape.
Three systems, designed together
| Component | What it covers | Good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Social System | Roles, structure, skills, and the well-being of people, customers and community | People are empowered, trained in management and work practices, and proud to work there |
| Technical System | Processes, tools, information and technology | Business architecture and technology architecture are designed together for effective delivery, with no workarounds |
| Economic System | Costs, pricing, investment, and the incentives and rewards that shape behaviour | Processes, products and services are designed with a clear view of their cost and value to staff, customers and shareholders |
The idea that the social and technical sides of work must be designed together comes from socio-technical systems research, which began at the Tavistock Institute in London after the Second World War. Studying British coal mines, researchers found that new mechanised methods broke up self-managing work teams, and that pits which reorganised the work around teams did better. The Business Execution Canvas adds the economic system, because what people are paid and measured on shapes what they do as surely as their tools.
Harbourline’s design gaps
Design is Harbourline’s second-weakest pillar, at 51 in round 3, up from 45 at the baseline.
| Component | Harbourline, round 3 | Change since the baseline |
|---|---|---|
| Economic System | 61 | +3 |
| Social System | 49 | +9 |
| Technical System | 44 | +6 |
The three systems explain the failed 2025 go-live and Northlight Financial’s repeat incidents between them:
- Technical System. The handover from project to service was not a designed process. Nothing required a run-book or monitoring before a new service went live.
- Economic System. Project teams were rewarded on the go-live date, not on a calm first 30 days, so the incentive pointed away from the support team.
- Social System. The Cork business and the two firms it bought kept their own roles and habits, and nobody owned the result from sale to steady service.
Harbourline’s response touched all three. The March 2026 “One Harbourline” operating model gave each client one accountable owner from sale to steady service and put a handoff agreement on every team canvas. Its strategy set a goal measured on calm first months, and an A3 made an agreed run-book part of every handover. That is the point of the pillar. A reorganisation that changes the chart but leaves the process and the incentives alone usually produces the same results with new names.
The value stream is the unit of design
The best place to design is a value stream: the end-to-end flow from a customer’s need to its being met, across every team it touches. Harbourline runs five, each with a named owner:
| Value stream | Owner | Measure today | Target by end 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Win work: lead to signed contract | Priya Raman | 31% of bids won | 40% |
| Deliver projects: contract to go-live | Martin Hale | 64% on time and on budget | 85% |
| Project to service: go-live to steady service | Declan Moore | 1 in 3 new services with a priority-1 incident in the first 30 days; 9-week handover | 1 in 20; 4 weeks |
| Run services: request to resolution | Declan Moore | Service levels met in 91% of months | 99% |
| Bill and collect: work done to cash | David Okafor | 12% of invoices disputed | 3% |
Designing by value stream keeps attention on the customer’s result rather than on each team’s part of it.
What management can learn from software
- Software architecture and team structure end up mirroring each other, whether anyone plans it or not; good organisations design the two together.
- A system designed around its data flows outlasts one designed around its departments; an organisation designed around value streams outlasts one designed around functions.
- Teams measured on lines of code write more code, not better software; people measured on the go-live date hit the date, not a calm first month.
Try it
the project-to-service process
Choose Try the example: Harbourline’s project-to-service process, from go-live to steady service, owned by Declan Moore and run by Fiona Grant. It is free. Allow about 15 minutes.
- On the Value stream map tab, follow the five steps from planning the handover to steady service.
- On the Process owner tab, compare the current and future state: lead time, handoffs and how often the work is right first time.
- Under For the Forum, find the item the process owner cannot settle alone. Is it a social, technical or economic problem?
Pause and think · your notes
Bring the lesson back to your own organisation.
Check your understanding
Five questions on this lesson. Choose an answer to see straight away whether it is right, and why. Your score is saved with your progress.
Question 1
Project teams rewarded on the go-live date is a gap in which system?
Question 2
Why design the three systems together?
Question 3
What did socio-technical systems research find?
Question 4
What is the best unit to design around?
Question 5
A company reorganises into new departments but keeps every process and target. What is the likely result?
Socio-technical systems thinking comes from research at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, notably Eric Trist and Ken Bamforth’s 1951 study of British coal mining and Trist and colleagues’ Organizational Choice (1963). Value stream mapping comes from lean practice, popularised by Mike Rother and John Shook’s Learning to See. The observation that system design mirrors team structure is known as Conway’s law, after Melvin Conway. Harbourline Services is a fictional company used as the worked example in every Structured Collaboration tool. Its figures come from the sample diagnostic report.
© 2026 Alex McDonnell. All rights reserved. Business Execution Canvas® is a registered trade mark of Alex McDonnell. Structured Collaboration Canvas™ is a trade mark of Alex McDonnell.
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