The Value of Templates for Organizational Development

Templates are everywhere. Most of us deal with templates regularly, like subscription forms or reporting templates. Indeed, we’re so used to templates that we rarely ask ourselves whether there’s a downside to them. Yet, templates are far more than just a document with a given structure; templates are essential to thinking and working processes and therefore have an impact on corporate culture.

Templates are used for any kind of document, like audit reports, questionnaires, research papers, or project applications. They streamline procedures by specifying the expected layout of a document, and as such, they make communication and information flow efficient.

In general, templates are designed by the receiver in their interests, i.e. they represent the interests of the management, the agency, the funding institution, the supervisor etc. They ensure the receiver will get clean, complete, and ideally also homogenized data. At the same time, templates also help the provider by telling them what information is requested from them.

In so doing, templates structure data integration and data management and substantially improve workflows and efficiency. They are an effective data management tool and the basis of process automation.

Once templates are in place, they enhance efficiency. They streamline workflows by cleaning and standardizing data, reducing the amount of unnecessary data, and enabling linear information flow and advanced data analysis.

For automation to be effective, templates must be customized to the requirements of one specific process. Mapping more than one process with the same template is rarely advisable; usually, each process needs its own template. In complex organizations, where operations depend on digital and analog processes, developing smart templates is challenging. An airport, for instance, will find it more challenging to design reporting or contract templates that can be used in flight operations, retail, and IT alike. In this case, it’s vital to develop individual templates for each unit and process.

This challenge is even more pronounced in organizations that offer people-centered services, like the social sector. Processes involving human behavior deal with messier data that are more difficult to digitalize and streamline than machine-based processes. In these areas, templates must leave open options applicable to each individual case, which entails that data are less structured and more dependent on the provider’s reasoning.

Also, templates offer the tempting opportunity to collect more data along the way. It is, however, important to wisely select the data that will be managed. Collecting more data doesn’t necessarily entail better data analytics; instead, more data will end in more administration requiring more resources after all. This is especially true if data are sensitive and require authorization, like sensitive personal data. Organizations must limit their workflow to the data they’re authorized to manage in order to avoid legal issues and work overload later down the road.

The number of internal processes getting managed by means of templates has an effect on corporate culture. Templates turn communication into a linear flow of information, which is efficient but also removes the need to interact. When templates indicate what information is needed, no questions must be asked and staff can do the job alone.

This is desirable in many cases, because otherwise people would get drained. HR processes, for example, where a lot of personal data are managed and individual requests are daily business, automated data management based on templates indisputably alleviates the workload.

Some areas have switched to fully automated workflows, such as Integrated Reporting. Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence technologies have taken reporting automation to a next level, and soon, data will be comprehensively managed by machines. This is successful when the process is supervised by an expert.

So, this sounds fantastic. But is there also a downside to fully streamlined, template-based data management?

Yes. Because the more processes get automated, the less interaction is needed. When templates tell them what to do, providers are guided through the task with no need to ask or inform colleagues.

Less interaction among team members can lead to a team starting to fall apart if its members don’t touch base with each other regularly. This is why many companies highlight the value of the coffee machine, where people casually meet and chat. If such regular interactions don’t happen, team members don’t feel like they belong, don’t identify with their team or organization, and start to look for a more satisfactory and appreciative environment.

Companies in manufacturing and with more analog processes, as well as startups and young companies in which regular exchange is indispensible usually have stronger teams.

Interaction also means that the provider mentally interacts with the content. When data management is automated, processes become more predetermined and homogenous; in other words, they become monotonous. The provider stops thinking creatively about the process they’re in and disconnects mentally.

So, as a rule of thumb, the more rigid internal workflows are, the more people become used to doing only one set of standardized tasks. Templates hinder inspirational and innovative thinking.

This shows in learning and training. I have supervised and advised over 1,000 student papers at all levels, and in the beginning, papers were structured by students themselves. Over time, paper structure became more rigid, which cleared the way for the appearance of templates and paper writing software.

After the introduction of templates, students’ questions shifted from asking “how do I go about this?” to “what do I have to fill in here?”. With the arrival of templates, students stopped thinking of what they had to say and started to think of what they were expected to say. Instead of allowing students to come up with their own strategy, templates turned research into the process of filling out a form; the introduction of templates scotched creative thinking and solution-finding.

Templates scotch innovation, so to speak.

This is why organizations must consider what the purpose of a template is. Templates are effective to optimize procedures and data management. Organizations working with relatively unstructured data should invest in cleaning their data and making data management easier, and templates are a good way to start.

At the same time, if an organization would like its teams to be innovative and think outside the box, there must be room for out-of-the-box thinking; or, literally, out-of-the-template thinking.

The more templates and rigid processes there are, the less room for innovation is left. Organizations and units that already work with many templates and standardized processes in corporate functions, like those relying on an ERP, should seek to break out from that scaffold every once in a while. This is particularly common in IT, which explains why concepts of agility have been developed in this area to actively counteract disconnection and inspire workflows.

In more unstructured workplaces, by contrast, like the social sector, it is important to add structure, not agility. In such organizations, many processes are analog and data unstructured, so they need support in increasing structure and efficiency.

Organizational developers should consider such conditions before they come up with a plan to develop teams, corporate culture, and leadership. Looking at the shape and quantity of an organization’s templates is a good point of departure. Plus, effective change management is essential when new templates will introduce new workflows and procedures.

Most important, however, is to consider that organizations consist of humans. Automated processes are efficient and require little human intervention. Yet, it is essential to ensure that final results are still the experts’ responsibility. We’ll get the most sustainable results when templates alleviate the workload, get greenlighted by a human expert, and teams are strong and inspired.