The simplest organizational chart maker

Build your org chart in just minutes with Zen Flowchart
organizational chart
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1-click creation

Create a new role or position with a single click. Connect people in your company easily with smart connectors. Your org chart is just clicks away!

Clutter-free workspace

Your content is what matters most, so we put that front and center. No sidebars. No floating icons. No distraction.
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zen flowchart

Minimal & intuitive interface

To make it very easy to create organizational charts, we did away with all complicated and unnecessary features. The result is a thoughtfully simple, yet fully capable interface design.

1-click styling

Customize your org chart with simple styling options: pick a node color and style your texts to differentiate between levels and roles.
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Collaborate
in real-time

Invite team members and clients to view, comment, or edit your work. Whenever ready, export or publish your organizational chart to a shared link which automatically updates any changes you make.
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If you’re looking to bring clarity to an organization or a project, an organization chart (or org chart) can go a long way. If you haven’t created org charts in the past, you may find the process to be a little daunting. No worries, we have put together this quick guide to help you with just that!

Below, we cover the fundamentals of (just about) everything you need to know about org charts.

What is an Organizational Chart?

An organizational chart (also known as organization chart, org chart) is a diagram that visualize the structure of a company/organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its roles. Org charts can help viewers understand the size of the organization as well as the relationships between departments, teams and roles. Org charts are often used by companies' senior executives, managers and HR department for personnel planning and strategy.

3 Main Types of Org Charts

1. Hierarchical Organizational Chart
Hierarchical Organizational Chart Template

The most common type of org chart is Hierarchical Org Chart. This type of org chart is especially helpful if you are organizing people or structuring a group or company that needs clearly defined positions and roles to be filled out and placed into a chain of command.

The top of the chart is represented by the most senior individual and leader, and each successive block down encompasses the next most senior individual and leader (or leaders). Relationships between direct reports are also broken down in these hierarchical charts.

2. Matrix Organizational Chart

Matrix org charts, on the other hand, are designed for use in organizations and projects where there are more than just one individual manager/idea at each individual level.

These charts handle more complex relationships with ease, still clearly defining the hierarchy and the relationships between all roles listed, but doing so in a cleaner way than a traditional hierarchical chart could.

3. Flat Org Chart / Horizontal Org Chart

A Flat Organizational Chart always consists of two or three individual levels. At the top you have your high-level managers and executives and beneath that you have your core workers and employees.

Main Uses of Organizational Charts

Traditionally, org charts are used to outline the organization structure and “chain of command” in businesses and organizations. These kinds of charts can be used by managers and executives to better understand the direct reports that they are responsible for, but can also be used by employees to better understand who they report to as well as how each individual group or project team contributes to the whole organization in general.

It’s also really easy to onboard new employees at every level with org charts, simply because the amount of information provided is always distilled down to the most essential components only on the relationship between all of the people listed.

Org charts can also be used during restructuring to help clear up any confusion or misconceptions. These kinds of charts guarantee that no individual or department “slips through the cracks”, as well – something that happens with an alarming frequency when these kinds of tools aren’t taken advantage of. Lastly, workforce planning and resource planning can take advantage of org charts, too.

Quick Tips for Creating Org Charts: Tools & Organizational Chart Maker

Firstly, make sure that you define the initial purpose and overall goals of the org chart that you are looking to establish. Secondly, you’ll want to gather as complete information about each role as possible to detail your org chart from top to bottom.

The next piece of the puzzle is to figure out how you’re going to physically create your org chart moving forward. Modern software designed with org chart creation in mind is more accessible and affordable today than ever before. These kinds of Organizational Chart Maker can create org charts very quickly and effectively.

Finally, you’ll want to do everything you can to build in flexibility with your org chart right from day one. It’s unlikely that the structure you outlined is going to be completely permanent. Thankfully though, org charts built using Org Chart Software are easy to update, redefine, realign, and overhaul completely as your organization changes.