How to set up your SD Map

Summary The SD Map is the foundational organisational structure in PaT. You build it by following a flowchart, repeating its steps until the whole organisation is mapped. Starting with the CEO or Founder control document, you create a Business Strategy, embed the leadership PARs, add Business Unit (BU) Master SDs, and build out the chain of command by linking subordinate roles and strategies. The result is a complete organisational blueprint that enables automated task management, targeted training, consistent filing, and alignment from top-level strategy down to individual employees.

Steps

Introduction. The SD Map is built from a flowchart, the Recursive Organisational SD Map Algorithm. It is the blueprint for building an organisational structure in PaT: the foundation for everything from training and strategies to reports and projects. You use it by following a set of rules in a recursive manner, repeating the steps as needed, until your blueprint is fully built. The steps below follow the flowchart from the top.

Key conventions. These conventions help you build your SD Map and follow the instructions clearly: - "Speech marks": type the text exactly as shown, without the quotes. - [Square brackets]: a placeholder. For example, [Name] becomes the person's name. - Suggestion: optional wording. Feel free to adapt it for your organisation. Note: SD stands for Strategy Document, a proprietary, database-backed document used widely in PaT. Unlike Word or Google Docs, SDs enable automation, AI integration and secure data sharing. Think of them as Word documents with Excel-style power, backed by a database: from simple lists to full CRMs. Three more terms: Embed means an SD nested inside another SD; Co. is short for Company; and a Template is an SD saved as a template, to quickly create new, consistent documents.

Key. The flowchart's key defines the terms the steps use. Take a minute to review it: - Business Unit (BU): an area of responsibility, a group of people that perform functions. One or many BUs can report to other BUs. All BUs must exist within a PAR (Leader). - Department (Dept.): a high-level BU. The highest ranking BU (as defined by the organisation), ultimately responsible for all training and templates within a BU hierarchy. - PAR: Performance Agreement Review, the document that ties together the strategy with the person responsible for their part and the employment agreement. The Business Strategy is the CEO's PAR. - Strategy: the plan, which includes the thinking and the tactics (tasks). - KRA: Key Result Areas, the tactics (tasks) grouped by areas that the business identifies as key. You may find the flowchart easier to view or print as a PDF, which is a separate guide.

The top of the map

Step 1

Create the CEO or Founder SD, the genesis of the SD Map. It belongs to the person who ultimately owns the strategy, and it is a 'control document' from which the structure flows. Depending on the organisation, there may be a board (Advisory or Directors) that the CEO or Founder reports into. Create it as a blank SD. Suggestion: "[Name]Control SD". The Create a new SD module covers how to create an SD.

Step 2

Create the Business Strategy SD. Everything starts with a plan, and the highest ranking plan in a business is called the Business Strategy. Create it as an embedded SD inside the CEO or Founder control SD, from the template 'PaT Strategy Template'. Suggestion: "[Co. Name]Master Strategy". Before you continue, it is critical to understand PaT templates, and how the PaT Strategy Template is laid out and used: the PaT SD Templates Overview and Mastering the Business Strategy Template modules cover them. The Embedding SDs in SDs module covers embedding an SD.

Step 3

Create PARs for each direct report, and embed these leadership PARs. Embed each PAR under the relevant Strategy Owner and Direct Report section headers, within the Leadership Team section of the strategy SD. For a new PAR, embed it as a new SD from an SD template: the Embedding SDs in SDs module covers embedding. For an existing SD, change its parent SD instead: the Assigning an SD to a new parent module covers how. Note: if your strategy SD is the Business Strategy (the highest level), the CEO does not require a PAR. In this case, add a note in the Strategy Owner section with the text "CEO" (or similar), as the Business Strategy itself functions as their PAR.

Step 4

Embed the Business Unit (BU) Master SDs. All departments and business units are owned by a leader, so their BU Master SDs must be embedded within a PAR. Embed each "[BU Name] Master" SD inside the relevant PAR, and file it under Admin > Linked SDs > the Business Units section header. Use the PaT Business Unit Template Overview module as a guide. Repeat this for each leadership PAR. Note: some leaders have more than one BU, so their PARs may include more than one BU Master.

For each Business Unit

Step 5

For each BU, decide whether it needs its own strategy. Often it's valuable to break your high-level Business Strategy down into more focused Business Unit (BU) strategies. These lower-level strategies should align with and support the overarching strategy, while providing specific direction, ideas and tasks to boost the performance of the BU and its leaders. If the BU needs its own strategy, carry on with Step 6. If it doesn't, go to the Business Unit dependency question in Step 10.

Step 6

Spin up a new Strategy using the PaT Strategy Template. To run the Strategy Workshop, follow the same steps as for the Business Strategy: the Mastering the Business Strategy Template module covers them.

Step 7

Because you've built another strategy, you'll be ideating tasks that will end up as KRAs. That prompts a question: where do the new KRAs belong?

Step 8

Consider whether the new KRAs you've developed need to be: - flowed up to higher-level PARs and strategies; - flowed down to subordinate PARs; - or both. If they flow down and the relevant PARs haven't been created yet, keep the KRAs as notes for now. Once the PARs are in place, you can convert those notes into tasks, assigning them and setting deadlines as needed.

Step 9

Before or after you spin up the Strategy SD, make sure you have embedded it in the BU Master you've just made. Then skip ahead to the Business Unit dependency question in Step 10.

Step 10

Next is the Business Unit dependency question. You may come to it from one of two directions: 1) You answered No to the question "Is a Strategy Rqd?". In this case the answer will always be No, because a BU can only exist in a PAR and a PAR can only exist in a Strategy. 2) You have just created a Strategy and skipped the two decisions before this one.

Step 11

If there are supporting BUs linked to the BU Master you've just created: \1. Create the necessary PARs to accommodate those BUs. \2. Add them as linked PARs under the Leadership Team section of the strategy you just created. Do not embed them: only embed PARs within their direct supervisor PARs, unless it's the highest-level Business Strategy. \3. Create the new BU Master(s) and embed them within these new PARs. Then continue recursively through the flowchart, repeating the process of creating BU Masters, leadership PARs and any supporting strategies, until the full chain of command (CoC) is implemented.

Linking the remaining staff

Step 12

Once all BU Masters are in place, the final step is to link any remaining employees who weren't assigned to a Leadership Team within a BU Master. Start by linking the Direct Reports, and work your way down from there.

Step 13

Embed these subordinate PARs under Admin > Linked SDs > the Direct Report section of the supervisor PARs. Note: each subordinate PAR must include equivalent subordinate versions of the supervisor's KRAs. This ensures that KRAs from the Board Strategy and supporting strategies are linked, creating a clear line of sight from anywhere in the organisation back to the Board Strategy.

Step 14

If these direct reports have direct reports of their own, embed their PARs the same way, as direct reports in their supervisors' PARs, and make sure you keep flowing the KRAs down too. Continue looping down through the organisation, embedding PARs within PARs, until all staff are accounted for.

Result. With the SD Map fully implemented, the organisation's foundational structure is built. You can now: - Implement auto-escalating tasks, so nothing ever falls through the cracks (unless the CEO decides to ignore it!). - Train to the GAP: when students struggle with tests, supervisors are alerted via the CoC to provide targeted one-on-one training on the specific gaps. This shifts the learning responsibility to subordinates, freeing supervisors to focus only on the 10-20% the student couldn't grasp alone: a huge time saver and productivity boost. - Deploy all the business tools needed to achieve excellence: workflows, reports, LMS training content, projects, audits, forms, tasks and templates. - Enjoy a consistent, organised filing system where everything has its place, simplifying business complexity by using the same structure across all Business Units.