TABLE OF CONTENTS The organization of your team affects how the team approaches problems. A poorly organized team is less effective than a team organized correctly with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. The key is to have everyone on board for the validation process. If your team does not believe in the importance of validation, the product is not going to get the attention it deserves. There are several typical organization schemes when it comes to groups and each one has strengths and weaknesses. Choosing the appropriate scheme for a validation group is extremely important.
Because validation involves many different skill sets, it is easy to fall into a compartmentalized group structure. While this format produces highly skilled and specialized groups, it inherently breaks down the communication avenues between the groups. When designing your organization you have to keep the bigger picture in mind. Think beyond roles and responsibilities and consider things like team dynamics, morale, and communication. The most successful groups incorporate all these considerations.
Anyone who works in a large corporation becomes intimately familiar with organizational charts, or org charts. Org charts are graphical representations of the management hierarchy. An org chart makes a good slide in a presentation, but really offers you no insight into the group. Simply moving the boxes on the chart and drawing a few lines does not count as reorganizing your group. You need to do more in order to create an effective group. This effort involves clearly defining roles, responsibilities, deliverables, methods of communication,...
