The framework

The Organisational Resilience Lattice — a systemic methodology for weaving resilience into the fabric of the enterprise.

The Organisational Resilience Lattice is a proprietary diagnostic and design methodology developed by Andy Barbeau, Ph.D., from doctoral research and three decades of applied delivery in regulated, global enterprises. It treats resilience as a property of the whole organisation rather than the responsibility of any one function.

Six strands — Strategy, Governance, People, Process, Change Capability, and Technology — are scored independently, then cross-referenced at every intersection. The result is a heatmap that reveals where managerial design is failing and, just as importantly, which cross-dependencies are masking the underlying cause.

StrategyScore 3/5GovernanceScore 2/5PeopleScore 4/5ProcessScore 3/5ChangeScore 2/5TechnologyScore 4/5
Resilient (4–5)
Managed (3)
At risk (1–2)
Cross‑dependency
Six strands

Each strand, defined. Each scored. Every intersection, mapped.

The Lattice resists the temptation to treat strands as independent workstreams. Each is defined precisely so that scoring is repeatable and cross-dependencies are visible.

01

Strategy

Clear choices and value-creation logic translated into operating principles.

Definition

Strategy is the set of explicit choices about where to compete, how to win, and what the enterprise will refuse to do. In the Lattice, strategy is judged not by the document but by whether operating decisions visibly defer to it.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — strategy decks that never translate into operating principles, leaving middle managers to invent priorities week by week.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — every quarterly plan, hiring decision, and capital allocation traceable to a named strategic choice.

02

Governance

Decision rights, escalation paths, and separation of oversight from management.

Definition

Governance is the architecture of decisions: who decides, who is consulted, who escalates, and where oversight ends and management begins.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — boards drawn into operating decisions, executives drawn into board-level oversight, and escalation paths that route around the people who should decide.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — documented decision rights, predictable cadence, and a clear distinction between the chair's domain and the CEO's.

03

People

Role clarity, capability, incentives, and leadership behaviours.

Definition

People covers role design, capability, incentives, and the observable leadership behaviours that determine whether the operating model functions or fragments under pressure.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — ambiguous roles, incentives that reward output not outcome, and leadership behaviour that contradicts the stated operating model.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — role-clear teams, incentives aligned to the KPI tree, and leadership behaviour visibly modelling the change.

04

Process

End-to-end flows, controls, and BPM discipline.

Definition

Process is the end-to-end flow of value, governed by controls and managed with BPM discipline. The Lattice scores process not on diagrams but on adherence and adaptability under stress.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — process maps that exist only in audit binders, with operational reality run on tribal knowledge and workarounds.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — process owners with authority, controls embedded in the workflow, and measurable cycle-time improvement.

05

Change Capability

OCM maturity, communications, adoption, and benefits realisation.

Definition

Change capability is the institutional muscle for converting design into adoption. It spans organisational change management, communications, training, and benefits realisation.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — change treated as a launch event, communications mistaken for adoption, and benefits realisation orphaned after go-live.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — change capability embedded in line management, adoption tracked alongside delivery, and benefits owned by the business not the programme.

06

Technology

Enabling architecture, data, and tooling supporting the operating model.

Definition

Technology in the Lattice is judged as an enabler of the operating model, not as a portfolio of its own. Architecture, data, and tooling are scored on the fit they offer to the strategy and process strands.

Typical failure pattern

TODO: describe the typical failure pattern — technology roadmaps disconnected from operating-model design, data fragmented across silos, and tooling that automates the wrong process.

What good looks like

TODO: describe what good looks like — an architecture that flexes with the operating model, trusted data feeding governance, and tooling that removes friction from the value flow.

How the Lattice differs

Why a lattice, not a list.

Classic frameworks — McKinsey's 7S, Galbraith's Star, Burke-Litwin — identify the elements of an organisation but treat them as a list to align. The Lattice treats them as a woven structure: every strand influences every other, and most failure modes show up first at the intersections, not in the strands themselves.

  • Cross-dependency scoring. TODO: explain how each intersection is scored 1–5 in addition to the strand itself, and why intersection scores often diverge from strand scores.
  • Heatmap as primary artefact. TODO: explain how the heatmap turns a 36-cell grid into a board conversation about where to intervene first.
  • Governance separated from management. TODO: explain how the Lattice insists on a clean break between the oversight strand and the management strands, where 7S blurs the two.
  • Doctoral grounding. TODO: explain how the Lattice is grounded in management research rather than consulting heuristics, and why that matters for boards that need to defend the methodology.
Cross-dependency scoring

How the intersections are measured.

Each of the 15 unique strand pairs is scored on a 1–5 maturity scale that mirrors the strand scoring. Intersection scores are derived from triangulated evidence: structured interviews, targeted surveys, artefact review, and direct observation of governance forums.

  • TODO: describe the three evidence sources that must agree before an intersection is scored above 3.
  • TODO: describe the rule for when a strand score must be capped by its weakest intersection.
  • TODO: describe how scoring drift is controlled across multiple interviewers.
A worked failure pattern

When the intersection tells the truth.

In one anonymised engagement, Strategy scored 4 and Technology scored 4, but the Strategy × Technology intersection scored 2. The strands looked healthy in isolation; the intersection revealed that the technology roadmap was being set without reference to the stated strategic choices.

  • TODO: describe the symptoms the board was seeing before the diagnostic.
  • TODO: describe the evidence that exposed the intersection score.
  • TODO: describe the 90-day intervention and the measurable change at month six.
Diagnostic

MORe Organisational Resilience & Transformation Scorecard

A rapid, board-ready assessment of alignment across the six strands. Interviews, surveys, artefact review, and evidence scoring produce a numeric Resilience Score, a heatmap, and prioritised interventions with a 90-day plan.

Governance cadence: monthly executive reviews; quarterly board readouts; benefits tracking.

Download the Scorecard

Maturity levels

  1. 1
    Ad hoc
    Practice is informal and individual; outcomes vary by person and by week. Failure is recurring and unexplained.
  2. 2
    Defined
    Standards exist on paper but are inconsistently applied. Performance depends on goodwill rather than design.
  3. 3
    Managed
    Practice is measured, owned, and routinely reviewed. The strand performs reliably under normal conditions but is fragile under shock.
  4. 4
    Integrated
    The strand is woven into adjacent strands with explicit cross-dependencies and shared KPIs. Performance holds under stress.
  5. 5
    Resilient
    The strand adapts on its own. The enterprise learns from disruption and improves the operating model in response.
Resilience isn’t about being able to bounce back to a previous state, it’s about being able to bounce forward to a new state.
— Satya Nadella