What organising is

A plan is only an idea until people and resources are arranged to carry it out. Organising translates plans into action: it brings people, tasks and resources together into a unified whole, and creates an organisation structure, a clear pattern of roles, relationships, authority and responsibility.

Organising has four steps:

• Identification and division of work: list all the work needed to carry out the plan, and divide it into manageable jobs.
• Departmentalisation: group similar jobs into units or departments, for example by function (production, sales), by product, or by territory.
• Assignment of duties: give each job to the person best suited to it, matching it to their skills.
• Establishing reporting relationships: make clear who has authority over whom, and who reports to whom.

Example: twelve students must unload, shelve and clear away a delivery of library books. If they divide the work into these tasks, form groups, give each group its share, and agree who reports to whom, the job is done faster and better.