Hi everyone, we are just starting down our self-implementation path and working on our accountability chart and we need some input. We have 3 different business lines, an engineering services consulting group, contract manufacturing, and a staffing group. We are still fairly small at 35 team members and don't have a lot of senior management. So right now we settled on our top row (under the integrator) as Shared Services (which includes the common activities between the 3 groups Finance, HR, IT, and Sales/Marketing) and then we have the 3 business lines as the other 3 boxes. Then under each division we have operations at the next level down. Any input/suggestions would be helpful.

Hey, @Andrew McCutchen132 congrats on starting this journey. It's a game changer.

Your starting point for the A/C is that you have three major functions: sales/mktg, ops, and finance/admin.

It's very common for some of these functions to be split into multiple boxes -- sales/mktg can turn into a sales seat and a marketing seat, finance/admin is often split into several, and in cases like yours where you have distinct lines of business the ops seat can be split (into engineering services, contract manufacturing, and staffing).

So splitting seats is very common, but combining the distinct functions into a single seat is not something I've ever heard of. I think the pure EOS protocol is to leave the seats separate and maybe you'll have someone dual-hatted.

A couple tips:

• One person can sit in multiple seats. So it's possible that your best sales leader is also the right leader for another function. Dual-hatting is really common especially for companies just starting out with EOS.
• Use your bullets as a sanity check.
  • If you can't summarize a role in about five bullets, you're probably looking at multiple seats (or you're creating a job description rather than an A/C).
  • If the bullets don't naturally lump together, you're probably better off to list them as multiple seats.

Remember you have to think STRUCTURE not PEOPLE. To do this effectively, everyone in the room has to detach themselves from their ego and their current role. Start off the exercise by adopting the mindset of a consultant who is fluent in EOS and also an expert on your industry and offering. No one has a role -- create the structure and then hire the right people into the roles.

Hopefully the implementers on the board will also weigh in. Happy to help further if I can.

Hi Andrew,

We too are self implementing, have about 35 team members and do engineering, sales, installation, manufacture, software, etc.  Very tricky when you are highly vertically integrated and have a lot of complexity for a small organisation.  

We have people filling multiple roles in the accountability chart.  Today I am the CTO, Marketing Manager, CEO and shared services manager (HR, legal, insurances).  My COO is also the Sales Manager, Production Manager and Procurement Manager.  We are hiring a full time CTO at the moment, but don't expect the accountability chart to change, just some of the names in it.  

Almost worth starting with all the accountabilities that you have, and then working them backwards into boxes within the hierarchy

Good luck.

Gerard