Org chart template: a classic functional company

This is the default structure for a company of twenty-five to fifty people, and it is the default for a good reason: every function has one owner, and the managing director has six direct reports rather than thirty.

• Six functions, six heads. Sales, marketing, operations, engineering, finance and people. Under fifty people you rarely need a seventh, and you certainly do not need two layers inside each one.
• Three levels, no more. Managing director, function head, team member. Every extra level adds a week to every decision.
• The functions are deliberately uneven. Engineering has seven people and a vacancy, finance has two. Real companies are lopsided; a chart with six equal boxes is usually a chart somebody tidied up.
• One person holds two jobs. The finance manager also runs office administration. That is drawn as a second dashed box, and it is the case that makes headcount interesting — one person, two boxes, one head.

Where this shape fails: when a project needs four functions at once. Nobody below the managing director can decide anything across the columns, so everything escalates. That is the moment people start talking about a matrix, and the moment to read the org chart guide on drawing dual reporting honestly.

What to change first: delete the functions you do not have. Most companies of this size have four, not six, and pretending otherwise creates boxes with nobody in them.