MIT Organization Chart Review
We love org charts because of the stories they tell. They’re essential for transparency and understanding (both for people within an organization and for outsiders).
If you do a Google search for “Organizational Chart”, the results tell a clear story about who cares about org charts. First, there are some articles and software programs to help you make org charts. But on the second page of results, there are published org charts primarily from government agencies and universities. These are the people who seem to care the most about the transparency that published org charts provide.
To shine a light on the importance of org charts for small & medium businesses, governments, universities, and enterprises, we decided to review some of these published org charts. First up is MIT.
FINDING MIT’S ORG CHART
Of all of the org charts on the second page of Google results, MIT’s org chart is the most interesting. First of all, it exists on it’s own subdomain at http://orgchart.mit.edu/. That shows that they’ve made their org chart a top priority. Secondly, they also allow the org chart to be downloaded and printed in PDF. As much as people love to view an org chart online, there is something safe about downloading the org chart as well. Kudos to MIT for providing both options.
What’s good:
- Easy to find the main org chart
- Two viewing options (online and PDF)
What’s bad:
- There are different org charts for senior leadership & corporation officers. Very difficult to find lower levels of the organization structure.
ORG CHART NAVIGATION AT MIT
Navigating MIT’s org chart online is straight forward. All boxes are visible on one page. To get more detailed info, job titles are used as links to a bio page with contact information and a description.
What’s good:
- Quickly view reporting relationships
- Profile pictures
What’s bad:
- Limited to only 3 levels
- No expand/collapse view
- No pan and zoom
UPDATING MIT’S ORG CHART
MIT makes a note about the last time that the org chart was updated. As of this review, the latest update was September 20, 2016. MIT seems to be using Drupal as a Content Management System, so it should be fairly straight forward to make changes for the administrator.
What’s good:
- When it was last updated
What’s bad:
- No drag-and-drop option to update
MIT’S OFFICIAL ORG CHART VS. MIT’S ORGWEAVER ORG CHART
Modern online org charts can do a lot to increase transparency and understanding. Below is an example of MIT’s official org chart as well as a dynamic drag-and-drop org chart created with OrgWeaver. Click the links to both to compare. Let us know which one you prefer by heading over to our Facebook Page.
Click to view MIT’s official org chart
