A Systematic Approach to Optimize Organizations Operating in Uncertain Environments: Design Methodology and Applications

This paper presents a comprehensive methodology for solving diverse problems arising in performance optimization of organizations operating in uncertain environments. We introduce a technique to decompose a multi-dimensional organizational design problem into a series of coupled sub-problems whose iterative solution produces a near-optimal organizational structure, and decision processes. We illustrate our approach via an example to provide a step-by-step visualization of the modeling of complex and uncertain missions, and of synthesizing the concomitant organizations to optimize different sets of design objectives, while satisfying organizational constraints. Our methodology incorporates algorithms for optimizing the expected outcomes, collaborative organizational strategies, distributed resource utilization, mission processing schedule, and information management in an organization. The methodology serves as a valuable tool to address many practical problems arising in organizational design.