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This page is for admins and core team members setting up the AI Operating Model for your organization. It covers how the map gets built, and the two settings you control that decide what each person sees: their position and their home unit.

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How the map gets built

You do not build your operating model from a blank canvas. It is created with your Kowalah team, during discovery and the Vision Map Workshop, where your leaders and Kowalah map your org tree, your key processes, and each step’s current and target disposition. From there, ownership shifts to you and your Kowalah partner together:
  • Your Kowalah owner on each process helps keep it true, as part of the managed service.
  • Your core team and process owners maintain the map between reviews.
  • Everyone with the right position keeps the processes they own current.
Keeping the map current is a shared, standing responsibility, not a one-off project. A map that goes stale is worse than no map. The quarterly review with your Kowalah partner is where the whole map is checked and refreshed.

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Positions and altitude

Every person on the operating model has a position, which sets their altitude: where they land and what they own. Positions are assigned by you, the admin, on each member.

C-suite

Lands at the company view. Sees coverage rolled up across all business units.

Senior leader

Owns a portfolio of processes. Lands in the division or function they lead.

Manager

Owns their team’s processes. Lands in their team’s unit.

Individual contributor

Sees the steps they are part of. Lands in their home unit.
Position is separate from a person’s role (admin, core team, member). Role decides what someone can do across the platform; position decides where they sit on the operating model. A person can be a senior leader by position and a member by role, or a manager by position and core team by role. See roles and permissions for what each platform role can do.

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Home unit

Alongside position, each person has a home unit: the part of the org tree they belong to. Together, position and home unit decide where someone lands when they open the operating model, and which slice of the map is “theirs.”
1

Open members

Go to your organization members in Settings.
2

Set the position

Choose the person’s position: C-suite, senior leader, manager, or individual contributor.
3

Set the home unit

Assign the unit they belong to in the org tree. Leaders are usually the home unit of the unit they lead.
4

Save

The change takes effect immediately. Next time they open the operating model, they land at the right altitude.
Set positions and home units for your leaders first. They are the people who will own processes and drive the redesign backlog, so getting their altitude right has the most impact.

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What people can do once set up

With positions and home units in place, the three operating model permissions decide what each person can do: How ownership and editing are governed in detail, including granting direct-edit rights to specific people, is covered in ownership and governance.

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What’s next

Ownership and governance

Assign owners and govern how the map changes

Operating model overview

What the operating model is, for everyone