My role
As Deputy Director of the newly established Centre for Academic Support, I was responsible for designing its organizational model.
Context
Jagiellonian University was preparing to reorganize the administrative units responsible for teaching and education support. Until then, they had operated as separate units reporting directly to the Vice-Rector for Education. The new university leadership decided to bring them together within a single Centre for Academic Support.
The direction of the change had been defined, but the new organizational model had to be designed from the ground up.
Mandate
My task was to design the organizational model for the new Centre for Academic Support. I was not given a predefined structure or detailed guidelines on how functions, responsibilities and employees should be organized.
I was responsible for translating the overall decision to establish the Centre into a concrete organizational model and preparing it for implementation.
Stakeholder Research
I developed an employee survey and conducted individual interviews with unit managers. I gathered information about their responsibilities, competencies, experience, development needs and preferences regarding future roles.
This allowed me to consider both the needs of the organization and the potential of the people who would work within the new structure.
Analysis and Mapping
I compared the information gathered with the tasks and functions performed across the individual units. I analysed which activities belonged to common functional areas and what competencies were required to carry them out.
I built the new structure from functions and tasks to people — rather than from the existing arrangement of units.
New Organizational Model
Based on the analysis, I designed the organizational model for the new Centre. Tasks and functions were grouped into new areas of responsibility, and employees were then assigned to them.
Some teams retained a similar structure, while others were redistributed across the new units. Employees were given new assignments and scopes of responsibility. The reorganization was designed with no planned redundancies.
Consultation and Organizational Decisions
The proposed model was presented for consultation and then discussed with unit managers. The process progressed from presenting the concept and discussing the proposed changes to making concrete decisions about the new structure and employee assignments.
Implementation
Once approved, the model was translated into an operational organizational structure: new units, employee assignments, roles and responsibilities.
The project did not end with a recommendation — the designed model was implemented.
Result
The reorganization led to the establishment of Jagiellonian University’s Centre for Academic Support, bringing previously dispersed units together within a single organizational model. The resulting structure was not created by simply merging existing units, but by reorganizing functions, responsibilities and people.
Nine Years Later
The Centre for Academic Support, established in 2017, remains part of Jagiellonian University’s organizational structure. Over the following years, the model was developed and adapted to new needs, while its core organizational logic remained recognizable.
Nine years later, the structure continues to bring together key functions supporting teaching and education, demonstrating that the model was capable of further development and adaptation.
