Org Design Masterclass with Saumil Mehta, Square GM

Start by mapping base roles and targeted accountabilities across your domain; identify the problem hotspots and the reason for change. This precise kickoff aligns your leader, your people, and the broader team on what ends you’re driving and why.

In practice, saumil emphasizes a differently paced rhythm that starts from a clear base and targeted outcomes, not just a function list. Recognize that this framing matters amongst your domain’s stakeholders, including voices like graham and rachitsky, who stress simple handoffs and accountable owners for each problem.

Adopt a quick, structured cycle: define the base plan, designate a leader for each area, and run targeted experiments that validate hypotheses about centralized versus distributed models; track impact and iterate quickly.

Come to the table bearing a broader view, ensuring your decisions recognize the constraints and opportunities of your domain, and link them to people’s day-to-day work. By integrating insights from graham and rachitsky, you’ll land on a plan that ends with clear ownership and a practical path to execution.

Org Design Masterclass Overview

Begin across six weeks of cadence to map the current operating model, define the target shape that unlocks faster decisions, and align leadership across functions. Your team will surface constraints early, so decisions stay capital-efficient and execution-ready. This approach builds awareness, consistency, and a practical mindset that turns theory into action.

The program spans six modules and a capstone artifact set: a practical operating-model map, a decision-rights matrix, a governance charter, and a people plan. It prioritizes small, testable experiments that illuminate the path from case studies to action. The result is a clear blueprint you can apply to any zone, from a startup to a larger organization. The emphasis on attention to detail ensures nothing is left to chance, and individual contributors see how their work fits into the larger concert of leadership effort.

Take these findings as a practical playbook you can deploy in your own teams.

1. Week 1 – Current-state mapping: capture roles, responsibilities, handoffs, and the decision-rights landscape; establish a single source of truth; set baseline metrics.
2. Week 2 – Target-state design: define the operating model shape, governance rituals, and core meeting formats; articulate the why and the expected value for the entire organization.
3. Week 3 – Option exploration: build two to three design alternatives and evaluate trade-offs against capital constraints, speed of decisions, and risk; document the case for the preferred option.
4. Week 4 – Alignment and awareness: socialize the approach among leaders and teams; collect feedback to raise consistency in language, roles, and expectations.
5. Week 5 – People plan and capacity: map all roles, spans of control, and workloads; identify individual owners; draft transitions before changes take effect.
6. Week 6 – Roadmap and success metrics: publish a practical 90-day rollout; align on key metrics and cadences to sustain progress; prepare for ongoing development and improvement.

Takeaways at the end include a ready-to-run operating blueprint, a capital-efficient resource plan, and a clear case for the next steps. If a given area wasnt ready, the plan specifies how to unblock it in weeks that follow, and the medium of deployment is tailored to your culture and capacity. The approach emphasizes personal accountability; meet stakeholders where they are, and personally contribute to every area. You can take the learnings with you unto the next phase, and apply them to anything your organization faces.

Link Product Strategy to Org Design: a practical blueprint for fast alignment

Kick off by aligning product milestones with the organizational operating framework in 90 days, establishing a single source of truth, and publishing a living chart that updates weekly.

This approach rests on clarity around base roles, decision rights, and cadence, including a compact governance layer that front-line teams can execute.

• Walk the plan from the top down to the front lines; capture a shared view across executive sponsors and frontline squads, then translate it into actionable changes.
• Base the model on four functional squads covering Product, Data, Experience, and Delivery; the chart shows who decides, who executes, and how dependencies turn over time.
• Karen leads the executive review; several leaders contribute thoughts, and the sponsor acknowledges risks in writing to sustain alignment across teams.
• Publish bullet-level decisions: either approve or revise within 48 hours; use a single doc to reduce churn and keep everyone informed.
• Map capacity shifts: you’ll see that teams take on more scope in early years and prune later; forecast updates happen after each milestone turns.

Practical blueprint components, ready for implementation:

1. Operating map: chart current base, desired target, and the gap; include interfaces, data flows, and cross-functional handoffs.
2. RACI for product cycles: Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed; ensure clarity to avoid work landing in the wrong squad.
3. Resource alignment plan: a Duke-level sponsor aligns resources, with Karen and others providing executive thoughts to validate priorities.
4. Cadence and rituals: weekly standups, biweekly reviews, monthly performance snapshots; each ritual has a clear objective and output.
5. Roadmap translation: convert strategy into a four-quarter plan; each quarter lists initiatives, owners, and the required shifts in structure.

Evidence and tactics from experience:

• View the data behind decisions and openly acknowledge risks; reporting should cover front-line feedback and the rationale behind shifts.
• Including customer signals accelerates alignment; use a simple chart to connect user insight to product backlog and capacity planning.
• YouTube walkthroughs and case studies can illuminate how teams progressed from plan to delivery; incorporate learnings, then tailor to your context.
• Reported outcomes in several programs show faster alignment when executive thoughts are crystallized into concrete next moves, not abstract goals.

Tactical guidelines to execute now:

1. Define a 12-week sprint for initial alignment; document success criteria in a shared doc and circulate it in a morning digest.
2. Publish a front-line walkthrough outlining who does what, when, and why; this avoids silent handoffs and reduces rework.
3. Establish a baseline and target metrics: time-to-ship, dependency count, and resource utilization; track trends across quarters and adjust as needed.
4. Use a single source of truth for decisions, priorities, and status; escalate blockers in a bullet format so leadership can react quickly.
5. Encourage teamwork across functions by scheduling joint planning sessions; ensure everyone understands the operating model and their contribution.

Expected outcomes: faster alignment, clearer accountability, and reduced cycle time; the approach supports both more ambitious product ambitions and tighter execution discipline.

Define Roles, Ownership, and RACI for scalable product teams

acknowledge that clear ownership accelerates delivery. Establish a compact RACI for each domain: Accountable owner, Responsible doers, Consulted experts, and Informed stakeholders. Store this artifact in an office-visible document and update it during the period cadence, so teams can talk through decisions and learned from outcomes. Ensure teams are empowered and committed to outcomes.

Define the core mapping per domain: Accountable owner, Responsible doers, Consulted experts, Informed stakeholders. Do not overload a single person across multiple domains; if overlaps occur, this seems risky and slows progress. Keep ownership similar across squads to avoid confusion; ensure there is a single accountable, a primary set of Responsible, plus a short list of Consulted and Informed people. For cross-cutting work, appoint a steering group outside sprint teams that meets weekly and frequently reviews decisions.

Adopt classical practices: a single owner per domain, documented in a living matrix; leave little ambiguity about who decides, who executes, who consults, and who stays informed. If misalignment appears, use prior decisions as guide and adjust quickly. Publish a simple RACI template in a shared office area or digital board; update it in a period tied to sprint cycles so changes land promptly.

Track concrete signals: cycle time from idea to decision, handoff latency between Responsible and Accountable, and frequency of misalignments. If these trend poorly, revisit who is Accountable, adjust who is Consulted, and tighten the decision cadence. Use outside feedback, and frequently collect input from customers and internal users to refine the matrix. Keep changes small and reversible to reduce risk.

Encourage talk in safe settings; acknowledge learned lessons; empower ourselves to adjust. Whether a decision affects customers or backend systems, ensure ownership is clear. When issues arise, loop in the affected themselves and other stakeholders, including them, to own the fix. Leave behind skipped steps by escalating quickly. A restaurant-style review cadence helps surface friction, clarifies who leads each piece, and reduces unseen delays.

Storytelling with Metrics: turning data into leadership decisions (inspired by Figma’s CPO)

Recommend framing an exact hypothesis and a 3-5 metric narrative executives can read in five minutes.

Walk through data sources, map needs to micro and macro goals, and link actions to outcomes. Frequently refresh dashboards and keep the whole story consistent across reviews. Communicate the rationale clearly to stakeholders throughout the cycle. This approach makes the complex data feel approachable and helps leadership see why changes matter.

topics should cover activation, retention, monetization, and the sales funnel. If someone clicked into a detail and momentum didnt align with the summary, return later with a crisp recap that reanchors the discussion to the core question. The last mile for the executive depends on how actions move the metrics.

modeling should stay lean: use a medium-fidelity model, be transparent about assumptions, and embrace designing experiments with tight scope; the design of experiments stays consistent; keep much of the logic explicit, and accept spicy uncertainty. When reorgs alter ownership, update the metric map and ensure accountability follows the data. The model provides a high signal, while visuals stay clear.

To communicate effectively, tailor to the executive audience: one concise paragraph of context, three actionable asks, and one table of exact numbers. Provide a linked appendix with micro details if needed. If some stakeholders arent comfortable with numbers, attach a simple guide that clarifies definitions and thresholds. This provides a ready reference that sorts out priorities, and keeps follow-up actions aligned.

Decision Rights and Governance: rituals, forums, and cadence that support rapid execution

Adopt a lightweight decision rights map that splits authority into strategic, tactical, and operational layers. Owners: executive sponsor for strategic bets; product managers for key choices; team leads for day‑to‑day execution. Publish a concise, knowledgeable one‑page guide that maps decision types to owners, defines the setting and threshold, and specifies signing requirements. Keep the page current month by month to prevent drift and reduce friction for packaging options into concrete proposals.

Rituals drive speed and coherence. Run quick pre‑mortems before large bets; conduct after‑action reviews after launches to convert insights into practice. Establish a weekly Decision Forum, led by a knowledgeable manager, to surface two to three options, a recommended path, and signing thresholds. Use looping to gather input from product, engineering, and go‑to‑market teams; capture concerns and alternatives on a short, coherent page that sits in a shared setting and is easy to reference. In conversations, talked points and exact numbers help neighbors left of center compare creative options and choose a winner, reducing fault lines and choking momentum. Jaleh coordinates the loop to keep knowledge current, and the team converts what’s discussed into actionable packaging anew each month.

Cadence and forums align execution speed with deliberate consideration. Daily 15‑minute stand‑ups surface blockers in running streams; two‑week sprints tighten delivery while keeping options open; a 60‑minute monthly review anchors strategic bets; a quarterly planning session advances value and sets upcoming priorities. If questions arise while wondering about edge cases, the set of answers lives in a compact page that facilitators can share instantly, preserving momentum and avoiding delays in the decision loop. Also, maintain a lightweight archive to show what was decided, what changed, and why, so creative teams can learn quickly and convert learning into practice.

Metrics, packaging, and people keep the system running. Track decision cycle time, the difference between options, and the likelihood that a chosen path yields value. Require crisp answers to core questions at each forum: what is the decision, who owns it, what is the timeframe, and what is the exact threshold to progress. Use compensating controls when risk grows, so no single decision chokes capability. The setting page serves as the single source of truth, with a dedicated owner (often a manager) who ensures the loop stays current. Jaleh oversees the process, keeps the page refreshed, and ensures that what’s been converted into action remains accurate and continuing to deliver value for the team and the competitor landscape.

Leadership Playbooks: Saumil Mehta’s patterns for scaling product impact at Square

Start by choosing a single customer outcome, forming a standalone group, and starting a 6-week cycle to validate impact, capturing learning in concise statements.

Top-level alignment matters: a major sponsor allocates a fixed budget and sets a crisp objective; theyve defined success criteria and a lightweight charter that holds the team to real deadlines and clear outcomes.

Resourcing approach centers on a compact squad of 4-6, led by clear roles such as product owner and engineering lead, and clear responsibility boundaries. This structure avoids bloated programs and enables rapid decision-making.

Ideas convert into experiments through a simple hypothesis format, including a target value, a measurable metric, and a concrete success condition. Someone on the team owns each experiment, and the loop includes listening to customer signals to feel what they heard and refine the approach. If an experiment fails, the issue is captured and pivots quickly; if it succeeds, scale accordingly.

Measurement discipline centers on a few leading indicators, coupled with lagging outcomes. Statements summarize what was learned, and value realized becomes the basis for next steps. Theyve spent the majority of effort validating assumptions rather than building features; results look solid, and the team continues to iterate.

Cadence and governance ensure learning scales: a short steering cadence, a transparent group backlog, and routine listen sessions. This helps somebody, even somebody new, to understand the current priorities and the impact of ongoing work. The approach preserves autonomy while aligning to the broader vision, and it avoids isolated pockets of activity that fail to deliver value.