What does an OD&D specialist do?

OD&D specialists help enable the success of organisation strategy by bringing together all parts of the organisation to make sure the organisation’s ‘system’ operates at its best. They look at both the ‘hard’ elements of the system (structures, processes, policies, and metrics) and ‘soft’ elements of the system (culture, values, behaviours and relationships), and bring these together to help people and organisations perform at their best. 

As an OD&D specialist, you will need to understand behavioural science – the way people think, interact and behave as individuals and groups – and know how to enable behaviour and culture change. OD&D specialists often have to use their own insight, perception, judgement and personality to influence and support organisations to change their thinking and behaviour in order to be their best. If you are a specialist focusing on organisation design, you’ll need to understand how to design roles and structures which enable better organisation performance 

Your typical activities

Here are some of the activities you can expect to be involved in as an OD&D specialist:

• Advising on organisational design and structures
• Undertaking organisational diagnostics. 
• Creating organisational development interventions
• Designing organisational values. 
• Designing and delivering behavioural interventions. 
• Leading on culture change programmes
• Advising on work design choices and approaches.

Types of roles in organisation development and design

Here is a shortlist of the types of job titles you might find in organisation development and design. As you can see, OD&D specialists are at all levels of experience and seniority: 

• Organisational development officer 
• Organisation design manager 
• Organisational development business partner 
• Organisation development practitioner 
• Organisation design specialist 
• OD consultant 
• Head of organisational development and design 
• Director of organisational development