Types of org charts
There are about nine kinds of org chart worth knowing, and most companies are two of them at once. Here is each one drawn properly by the same engine you would use, with when it is used, what it is good at and what goes wrong, and a table at the end to find yours.
By how they are drawn
Before the types: the same chart can be drawn four ways, and the drawing is not the structure.
- Vertical
Top down. The default, and what every chart on this page is.
- Horizontal
Left to right: the same tree on its side, for a wide, shallow organization on a landscape page. The editor draws it from the same list, in either direction.
- Stacked
Vertical at the top and columns below, so a wide chart fits the page. The engine does this on its own: wide teams stack under their manager and the rest stays vertical.
- Circular
Rings around the leader. Described at the end of the list; not drawn here.
Hierarchical One person at the top, layers below, one manager each.
Merritt & Sons · 10 people
Used when
Almost everywhere. It is less a type than the shape the other types are drawn in: every chart on this page except the network is hierarchical. Drawn on its own it fits a company still small enough that grouping by function or division is not yet a question — one leader, a handful of directors, a manager or two under each.
Good at
Being read. Anyone can find who reports to whom in seconds, a new hire can see where they sit, and the chain of decision is the chain on the page.
Watch out for
Layers. Each level between the top and the work adds a handoff, and hierarchies grow levels without deciding to. Count them against headcount: under a hundred people, three below the top is plenty.
Functional Grouped by what people do.
Halcyon Foods · 13 people
Used when
The default past about twenty people. Everyone who does the same kind of work reports up the same line, so there is a finance department, an operations department, a marketing department, and a head of each.
Good at
Depth. Specialists work beside specialists, careers run up a single ladder, and nobody argues about who owns a decision inside their own function.
Watch out for
Silos. Anything that crosses functions — a launch, a new site, a customer complaint that touches three departments — has no owner until it reaches the top.
Divisional Grouped by product, market or region; each division a small company.
Meridian Outdoor · 11 people
Used when
A company running several businesses, or one business in several places, that wants each to make its own calls. Each division carries its own sales and operations; the center keeps finance, legal and the brand. The grouping can be by product line, by customer type or, as here, by region.
Good at
Speed and accountability. A division moves at its own pace, is judged on its own numbers, and a problem in one rarely spreads.
Watch out for
Duplication. The same job exists once per division, standards drift, and the shared functions in the center spend their lives negotiating with three general managers.
Matrix Two lines of reporting: a solid one to a function, a dotted one to a project.
Northgate Robotics · 11 people
Used when
Engineering, consulting and agencies, where people belong to a discipline for their career and to a project for their work. The solid line owns pay, performance and development; the dotted line owns the work this quarter.
Good at
Getting exactly the mix of people a project needs without anyone changing jobs, while specialists stay sharp inside their discipline.
Watch out for
Two managers is two sets of priorities. It works only where both know which of them decides what, in writing. Where nobody wrote it down, the person in the middle pays for it.
Flat One layer: everyone reports to the founder.
Brightwater Studio · 10 people
Used when
Small companies and studios, usually under fifteen people, where a management layer would cost more than it saves. Also what most startups are for their first year, whether they mean to be or not.
Good at
Nothing gets lost between layers because there are none. Decisions are quick and everyone knows what everyone else is doing.
Watch out for
It has a ceiling. Past about ten direct reports the founder is the bottleneck, and the first manager is hired a year late. Draw the day it needs a second layer before that day arrives.
Line and staff A line that makes the product, and staff roles that advise it without commanding it.
Redmoor Steel Works · 9 people
Used when
Plants, hospitals, the military and the public sector: anywhere a chain of command produces the work and a set of specialists — human resources, safety, legal, quality — supports the line without authority over it. Staff roles sit beside the manager they advise, not in the chain below.
Good at
Keeping the chain of command short and the advice close. A shift supervisor has one boss; the safety manager can walk onto any shift without being anyone's boss.
Watch out for
Staff with no authority get ignored until something goes wrong, and staff who acquire authority quietly become a second chain of command. Say which it is, on the chart and in the job description.
Team-based Cross-functional teams as the solid line; disciplines as the dotted one.
Bramble Digital · 11 people
Used when
Product and software companies that organize around a customer problem — checkout, onboarding — rather than a skill. Each team has an engineer, a designer and an analyst who report to its lead; the heads of engineering and design keep a dotted line for standards, hiring and careers.
Good at
Ownership. A team owns an outcome end to end, and the people who need to talk every day report to the same person.
Watch out for
It is a matrix with the lines swapped, and it fails the same way: when nobody says whether the team lead or the head of discipline decides a promotion. Small teams also duplicate scarce skills; three teams need three designers.
Network A small core, and partners who do the rest.
Kestrel Studio · 9 people
Used when
Studios, agencies and virtual companies that keep a handful of employees and buy everything else from firms and freelancers. There is no chart of the network itself — the partners have their own — so the honest chart is the core, with each partner marked as what it is.
Good at
Scaling up and down with the work, and buying a whole capability — animation, development, payroll — without a department.
Watch out for
Nobody on the chart is obliged to be there next month. Mark contractors as contractors so a reader can see how much of the organization is rented, and keep the one thing that cannot be rented, the relationship with the client, in the core.
Circular The hierarchy, drawn as rings.
A circular chart puts the leader in the center and each layer in a ring around it, with the outermost ring nearest the customer. It contains exactly the same information as the hierarchy it was drawn from; what it changes is the feeling, since nobody is at the bottom, and, past about thirty people, the legibility.
It is a way of presenting a chart, not a way of organizing a company, which is why nothing here draws one: the tools that do, do it as a picture, and the tree it came from is still the thing to keep current.
Which one is yours
Read down the third column. The reporting lines are what a chart actually records; the rest is a label for them.
| Type | Grouped by | Reporting lines | Fits | Fails when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hierarchical | Rank | One solid line each | Any size; the shape of the rest | Layers grow unnoticed |
| Functional | What people do | One solid line, up a function | Most companies past twenty people | Work that crosses departments |
| Divisional | Product, market or region | One solid line, up a division | Several businesses or places | Standards drift; jobs duplicate |
| Matrix | Discipline, then project | Solid to the discipline, dotted to the project | Engineering, consulting, agencies | Nobody wrote down who decides |
| Flat | Nothing: one layer | Everyone to the founder | Under about fifteen people | The founder passes ten reports |
| Line and staff | The line, and its advisers | Solid down the line; staff beside the manager | Plants, hospitals, public sector | Staff quietly gain authority |
| Team-based | A customer problem | Solid to the team lead, dotted to the discipline | Product and software companies | Scarce skills split three ways |
| Network | The core, and its partners | Employees solid; partners as contractors | Studios, agencies, virtual companies | The rented part is the important part |
| Circular | Rank, as rings | The same as the hierarchy it came from | A presentation | Past about thirty people |
Questions people ask
- What are the main types of org charts?
- Hierarchical, functional, divisional, matrix and flat are the five every list agrees on; line and staff, team-based, network and circular are the four worth adding because real companies use them. By how they are drawn, a chart is vertical, horizontal, stacked or circular. Most companies are two types at once: a functional core with a divisional wing, or teams with a dotted line to their disciplines.
- What is the most common type of org chart?
- Functional, by a distance, for any company past about twenty people: hierarchical in shape, grouped by what people do. Below twenty it is usually flat, whether the founder admits it or not.
- What is the difference between a functional and a divisional org chart?
- What the boxes on the second row are. Functional: departments (finance, operations, marketing), each doing one kind of work for the whole company. Divisional: businesses (a region, a product line, a customer segment), each doing every kind of work for its own market. Functional shares everything and duplicates nothing; divisional duplicates most things and shares a thin center.
- Which type of org chart is best for a small business?
- Flat until about ten to fifteen people, then a plain hierarchy with the first managers, then functional once each area has enough people to need a head. The mistake is drawing the functional chart with five heads and three staff. The small business example shows the moment the second manager arrives.
- What is the difference between a vertical and a horizontal org chart?
- Only the direction the same tree is drawn in: top down, or left to right. It changes nothing about who reports to whom. Mind the name, though: "horizontal org chart" is also used for the flat structure, the one-layer company, which is a different thing.
- Can a company have more than one type of org chart?
- Nearly all do. The point of naming the types is to see which one each part of the company is, so the dotted lines get drawn on purpose instead of discovered. Draw the structure the company actually runs on and let the label follow.
- Which types does this tool draw?
- Anything that is a tree: hierarchical, functional, divisional, flat, line and staff, and the matrix and team-based charts through dotted lines and staff cards, top down or left to right. It draws a network organization as its core with partners marked as contractors, and it does not draw circular charts.
Start from the one closest to yours
Import the spreadsheet or start from a template, and the engine draws whichever type the list turns out to be. Dotted lines, staff cards, contractors and open roles are on every plan, and building is free at any size.