Design and run a network survey that maps advice-seeking, collaboration and information-flow relationships in a team.
Leadership & Management
Organisational Network Analysis for Managers and Leadership Teams
Teaches managers to map informal influence, collaboration and information networks inside their organisation and apply the findings to restructuring, succession and collaboration decisions.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
A formal org chart shows reporting lines but not who people actually go to for advice, decisions or help getting things done, and restructuring or succession decisions made on the chart alone can miss the informal network that keeps work flowing, such as removing a quiet but heavily relied-upon connector. This course covers survey and passive-data methods for mapping organisational networks, interpreting metrics such as centrality, brokerage and clustering, identifying bottlenecks, silos and overloaded connectors, and applying findings to restructuring, succession planning, onboarding and collaboration redesign. Teaching uses a live network-mapping exercise on participants' own teams using anonymised survey data, interpretation workshops reading real network diagrams, and case studies of restructuring decisions that network analysis changed. Participants leave with a completed network map of a real team and an action plan addressing the bottlenecks and silos it reveals.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Interpret network metrics such as centrality, betweenness and clustering to identify key connectors and silos.
Identify individuals whose departure would create a disproportionate collaboration or knowledge gap.
Detect structural bottlenecks where too much information or decision-making flows through too few people.
Use network findings to inform restructuring, team design and succession planning decisions.
Redesign onboarding to connect new joiners into the informal network faster than the formal chart alone would.
Present network analysis findings to a leadership team in a way that respects confidentiality and avoids misuse.
Who Should Attend
Heads of organisational development and workforce planning running restructuring exercises.
Senior leaders responsible for succession planning in a critical function.
Change managers assessing collaboration risk before a merger or reorganisation.
People analytics teams building network analysis capability inside human resources.
Team leaders wanting to understand and improve collaboration patterns within their own team.
Consultants advising clients on restructuring who want an evidence base beyond the formal org chart.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Foundations of Network Analysis
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1What Organisational Network Analysis Reveals
- Distinguish the formal reporting structure shown on an org chart from the informal networks that carry advice and information.
- Identify the business questions network analysis can answer, such as collaboration risk or succession vulnerability.
- Recognise the ethical and privacy considerations involved in mapping who talks to whom inside an organisation.
- Decide when network analysis adds value over simpler methods such as interviews or engagement surveys.
Session 2Collecting Network Data
- Design a short survey asking who colleagues go to for advice, decisions or information on specific topics.
- Compare survey-based network data with passive data sources such as calendar or communication metadata, noting consent implications.
- Set an appropriate anonymisation and aggregation level that protects individuals while preserving useful patterns.
- Pilot a network survey on a small team before extending it to a larger organisational unit.
02Reading and Interpreting the Network
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Core Network Metrics
- Interpret centrality measures to identify individuals who occupy influential positions in the network.
- Use betweenness and brokerage metrics to find people who connect otherwise separate parts of the organisation.
- Identify clusters and silos where collaboration is dense within a group but sparse between groups.
- Read a network diagram to distinguish a healthy, resilient structure from a fragile, over-centralised one.
Session 2Spotting Risk and Opportunity
- Identify overloaded connectors at risk of burnout because too much collaboration routes through them.
- Detect isolated individuals or teams who are disconnected from the wider network and at risk of disengagement.
- Compare the informal network against the formal org chart to find mismatches worth investigating.
- Flag single points of failure where one person's departure would fracture collaboration between teams.
03Applying Findings to Management Decisions
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Restructuring and Team Design
- Use network findings to test whether a proposed restructuring would break valuable informal collaboration links.
- Redesign team boundaries to keep frequently collaborating individuals within reach of each other.
- Assess the collaboration impact of a merger or reorganisation before it is implemented, not after.
- Present restructuring options to leadership with network evidence alongside the usual organisational chart analysis.
Session 2Succession and Onboarding
- Use network position, not only formal seniority, as an input into succession planning for critical roles.
- Identify successors who already hold informal trust and connections relevant to a role, not only technical skill.
- Redesign onboarding programmes to connect new joiners into relevant parts of the informal network faster.
- Track how quickly new joiners build network connections as an early indicator of successful integration.
04Sustaining Network Awareness
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Presenting Findings Responsibly
- Present network analysis findings to leadership in aggregated, de-identified form appropriate to the audience.
- Anticipate and address concerns from staff about surveillance or misuse of network data before running a survey.
- Frame findings around structural patterns and team outcomes rather than singling out named individuals publicly.
- Agree in advance how network findings will and will not be used, such as never for individual performance rating.
Session 2Building Ongoing Network Capability
- Set a periodic cadence for repeating network analysis to track how structure changes after interventions.
- Build lightweight network-awareness practices, such as rotational assignments, that keep collaboration resilient over time.
- Train other managers to interpret basic network patterns without requiring a specialist for every analysis.
- Integrate network analysis findings into wider workforce planning and organisational design processes.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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