org-design
Help users design high-performing product and engineering organizations by choosing the right reporting models, team sizes, and cross-functional partnerships. It focuses on reducing friction and maximizing ownership through structural clarity.
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill org-design --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Organizational Design for Product and Engineering Structure your teams to maximize autonomy, speed, and strategic alignment. Help the user with organizational design for product and engineering using insights from 27 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter. ## How to Help 1. **Analyze Lifecycle and Goals** - Determine if the company needs speed and agility via a GM model or product cohesion via a Functional model. 2. **Define Team Boundaries** - Structure autonomous pods around durable customer segments or outcomes rather than temporary features. 3. **Assign Leadership Pairs** - Pair Product and Engineering leads at every level to ensure business strategy and technical execution are balanced. 4. **Implement Scaling Guardrails** - Add specialized roles like product ops and clear career ladders as the organization grows to maintain velocity. ## Core Principles ### Shift from Projects to Programs Bill Carr: "Let's create teams that can stand alone, where there's a single leader and the cross- functional resources that they need are all either directly report to them or are dedicated to them. So they don't necessarily have to be a straight line direct report. In Amazon
- How to Help
- Core Principles
- Shift from Projects to Programs
- Unify Under a Single CPTO
- Standardize via Functional Centralization
- Design in Public
- Distribute PM Responsibilities
- Hire Only When Thirsty
- Organize by Customer Segment
- Templates & Frameworks
- Questions to Help Users
- Common Mistakes to Flag
- Deep Dive
- Related Skills
What does the org-design skill do?
Help users design high-performing product and engineering organizations by choosing the right reporting models, team sizes, and cross-functional partnerships. It focuses on reducing friction and maximizing ownership through structural clarity.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill org-design --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From RefoundAI/lenny-skills, a repository with 1,215 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.