Structure for work environment with many roles and teams

[midnattens]

A big hello to all of you,

I am a big fan of order and structure and write down lots of things in Obsidian, both privately and at work. But what always been kinda messy was my directory structure. Fortunately, I discovered the Johnny Decimal system and successfully introduced it into my work environment. I have been using it for a good year now - but now I have to adapt my system due to restructuring in the company.

Our company likes to think in roles and teams and many of us employees have several roles in different teams. What first worked with areas and categories now needs to be adjusted 'cause I got more additional activities in the company.

My first and initial approach was like this:

10-19 Role1
	11 Organisation
		11.01 Correspondence
		11.02 Planning
		11.03 Notes
	12 Projects
		12.01 Project1
		12.02 Project2
20-29 Role2
	21 Organisation
		21.01 Correspondence
		21.02 Planning
		21.03 Notes
	22 Team1 
		22.01 Correspondence
		22.02 Planning
		22.03 Notes
	23 Team2
		22.01 Correspondence
		22.02 Planning

I don’t know why I can’t format the part above (preformatted text) correctly?

Thoughts/Issues

As you can see I had several problems over time, which are:

• In Role1 I have several projects which is fine to map 'cause I have a lot of IDs available as sub-folders. Nevertheless, I can no longer divide any project into sub-folders like Planning etc., because I no longer have any levels available.
  What I could do is to have sub-folders like
  • 01 Correspondence
  • 02 Planning
  • …
• In Role2, in which I am responsible for different teams, I do not have the possibility to have the Organisation category, since the category is already used as team name .

So my next approach are systems:

T22 Role1 Team1
	T22.10-19 Organisation		
		T22.11 Correspondence	
		T22.12 Planning
		T22.13 Notes
	T22.20-29 Team
		T22.21 Meetings
			T22.22.01 Meeting1
	T22.30-49 Projects
		T22.31 Project1
			T22.31.10 --- Organisation
			T22.31.11 Correspondence
			T22.31.12 Planning
			T22.31.13 Notes
			T22.31.91 --- Knowledge
				Specific Knowledge Item ???
			T22.31.92 Tools ???
			or
			T22.31.92 --- Tools ???
	T22.90-99 Resources
		T22.91 Knowledge
			T22.91.01 Item1
			T22.91.02 Item2
		T22.92 Tools
		T22.93 Assets	
			T22.93.01 Icons
			T22.93.02 Symbols
			T22.92.03 Fonts

Thoughts/Issues

• I thought it would be a good idea to structure the ideas into separate groups. By that, Correspondence would always get an ID of 11
• I have expanded the project range from 30-39 to 30-49 to have enough room for upcoming projects.
• The main problem is the ID for Knowledge T22.31.91. I am not able subdivide the knowledge gained for a specific project into more sub-folders.
• Also I have no idea where I should put tools for a specific project.

In addition, there are roles that I perform for the entire company and not specifically for a team.

So I thought I make a separate system for all roles that have no connection to a specific team.

N22 Other roles
	N22.11 Other role 1
		N22.11.10 --- Organisation	
		N22.11.11 Correspondence
		N22.11.12 Planning
		N22.11.13 Notes
		N22.12.30 --- Projects	
		N22.11.90 --- Resources
	N22.12 Other role 2
		N22.12.10 --- Organisation	
		N22.12.11 Correspondence
		N22.12.12 Planning
		N22.12.13 Notes
		N22.12.30 --- Projects	
		N22.12.91 --- Knowledge

Thoughts/Issues

• I thought that I omit the areas in that case, since every role that I have or will have in the future is just a single category. No special sorting - if I get a new role that role will get the next free number/category. That’s all.
• The IDs of each role are again structured in groups. So, for instance, Correspondece always gets an ID of 11 in every different role.
• The Problem is once again that there is no room (IDs i.e. sub-folders) left for any of the IDs like Correspondece, Planning, etc.

So, just to sum it up. No matter which direction I think I always come to a point where something does not feel right or is impractical.

I would love to hear your thoughts on my approach - your help is much appreciated!

A great day and weekend to all of you and many greetings,
Mike

[Heloise (Héloïse)]

Hi Midnattens!

It may not be the right direction, but how about you get rid of roles and teams in your structure. Of course they make sense for the company but is this really the practical way to store your things?
Are there not things that you do that are entirely unrelated to a specific role? (like maybe tracking your holidays, or a priorization of topics in your daily time) If there are: where do they go?

Another possibility in your structure is to base it on the teams, rather than your roles? and you can have an area per team, and one which would be more global.

You would also maybe have systems like this:
System 1: Projects
System 2: Organisation
System 3: Resources
This is very dependant on what you actually put in there so some of this options might be irrelevant for you.

[johnnydecimal (John Noble)]

Hi Mike.

I think your problem is a variation on the ‘freelancer’ configuration that has been discussed many times here.

Lucy and I are close to a solution. We got sidetracked rebuilding my online store last week but I promise to you all that as soon as that’s done, today or tomorrow, I’ll spend a couple of hours a day documenting this until it’s done.

But, in summary, here’s what we’ve come up with.

I started typing it out and it’s too confusing unless I do it properly. Give me a couple of days to get back to you?

---

@midnattens

I don’t know why I can’t format the part above (preformatted text) correctly?

Tip: fix the formatting of your JD text blocks on the forum

Quick tip for those of you that use Markdown code blocks to format your JD numbers. And for those of you that don’t! Now you can. This is how easy it is. If you type two rows of three backticks, everything between them will turn in to monospaced text. ``` Like this. ``` This is a ‘code block’ in Markdown, so the forum software tries to figure out which language you’re using and formats it for you. Which is cool if you’re typing JavaScript… let hello = "world"; …but not so much when it doesn…

[midnattens]

Hi Heloise,

many thanks for your answer and your suggestions!

Are there not things that you do that are entirely unrelated to a specific role? (like maybe tracking your holidays, or a priorization of topics in your daily time) If there are: where do they go?

Sure, there are and you are totally right!
For such things I have a separate system called G22 General.
Within this system, there is an area called “Internal” and a category called “Me”. In here, I have collected all the topics that concern me personally as an employee, such as my employment contract, medical certificates, etc.

Another possibility in your structure is to base it on the teams, rather than your roles? and you can have an area per team, and one which would be more global.

This is already the case. Look at my example with T22 Role1 Team1

Many greetings,
Mike

[midnattens]

Hi Johnny,

many thanks for your answer and your thoughts on that!

I think your problem is a variation on the ‘freelancer’ configuration that has been discussed many times here.

I didn’t consider it the same problem first, but the more I think about it, the more parallels I see between my problem and the freelancer’s

Give me a couple of days to get back to you?

Sure! No stress! Your and Lucy’s help is much appreciated!

Quick tip for those of you that use Markdown code blocks to format your JD numbers. And for those of you that don’t!

Many thanks for your help on that. Unfortunately I can no longer edit the initial post. This is probably no longer possible once there are replies?

EDIT:
One more thing came to my mind. I thought for a long time about your statement where you said that it is pointless to give sub-folders the system name.

If you drag folders from different systems into the Windows Quick Access, you will no longer be able to tell the difference between the subfolders. In this case, it makes perfect sense to label the subfolders with the system name.

vs.

Many greetings,
Mike

[geraldrh (gerald.hiebler@gmail.com)]

Hi midnattens,

referring to your remarks starting with „EDIT“ and below, I am completely with you. I had the same issue when structuring a group of companies, one of which starting with e.g. 12A.AC.ID and I decided to add 12A to all sub-folders.

This also helps when you structure MS Outlook in the same way and you have to search for E-Mail content, which happens to appear in different folders. Then your results for budget related E-Mails will show e.g.
12A.11.15 Budget 2024
13B.11.15 Budget 2024
etc.

Best regards,
Gerald

[johnnydecimal (John Noble)]

@midnattens

If you drag folders from different systems into the Windows Quick Access, you will no longer be able to tell the difference between the subfolders.

An excellent point, thanks.

Also, I edited your post’s markdown blocks. I think you might be limited from editing because your user account is new. Standard controls built in to the forum software.

[torbengb (Ben)]

I am intrigued by the A00 project notation as I am starting to work on my personal storage, and I want to read more about that but I can’t find the source – can you give me a pointer, please?

[johnnydecimal (John Noble)]

13.01 Introduction

But it’s a bit clumsy at the moment. I spent yesterday afternoon re-writing this section; it’ll expand out to a few pages, and be much clarified. Give us another couple of days.

[midnattens]

A great evening ladies and gentlemen,
a huge thank you for all your help and participation!

After a loooooong absence due to restructuring in our company and after a lot of brainpower, I finally have found the following solution for myself, which I am currently testing in my everyday business.

As I already mentioned in my initial post I have different roles and teams
and came up with the idea of systems.

So in the end, the root of my Johnny Decimal approach looks like this…

As you can see I have a bunch of systems with different identifiers (prefix characters and numbers).
Over all, the systems all look like the reals names of my roles and/or teams

One level deeper it looks like this…

And if you are in T42.30-39 (the projects)…

Each project itself also can have it’s own areas and categories…

And if I dive into a specific category…

Based on this system, I maintain an index of all my structure in Obsidian.
So if I got lost I can easily find all content with the help of a full text search.

I also structured my inbox in Outlook exactly like the directories. So if I receive an email according to a specific team and/or project I move it to the according subfolder. That helps me to keep track in finding the right information in just a second.

I hope you can understand my approach and I have expressed myself clearly enough?

Regards,
Mike

[johnnydecimal (John Noble)]

Amazing! Glad you found a solution, it looks very well thought-out.

[midnattens]

Once more, for anyone who is interested in my approach, the structure in a more reader friendly text version

A22 System01
    A22.90-99 Resources
        A22.91 Knowledge
        A22.92 Tools
        A22.93 Assets
            A22.93.20 Images
            A22.93.21 Fonts
            A22.93.22 Icons
            ...
        A22.96 Accounts
            A22.96.20 Account01
            ...

D53 System02
    D53.10-19 Organization
        D53.11 Correspondence
            D53.11.01 Topic01
            ...
        D53.12 Planning
        D53.13 Notes
            D53.13.01 Meeting Minutes
            ...
        ...
        D53.19 Shortcuts
    
    D53.20-29 Team
        D53.29 Stuffing & Recruiting
    
    D53.30-49 Projects
        D53.31 Project01
        D53.32 Project02
            D53.32.10-19 Organisation
                D53.32.11 Correspondence
                    D53.32.11.01 Topic01 -> extended Ids ;)
                    ...
                
    D53.90-99 Resources
        D53.91 Knowledge -> same Area/Category across all systems ;)
        D53.92 Tools
        D53.93 Assets
    
    N22 System03
        N22.00-09 System
            N22.09 Archive
                N22.09.10 Task01
                ...
        
        N22.11 Role1
            N22.11.10-19 Organisation
                N22.11.11 Correspondence
                N22.11.12 Planning
                N22.11.13 Notes
                    N22.11.13.01 Meeting Minutes -> extended Ids ;)
                    ...

        N22.12 Role2
            N22.12.10-19 Organisation
                N22.12.11 Correspondence
                N22.12.12 Planning
                N22.12.13 Notes
                    N22.12.13.01 Meeting Minutes -> extended Ids ;)
                    ...

            N22.12.90-99 Resources
                N22.12.91 Knowledge
                    N22.12.91.01 Topic01
                    ...
                N22.12.94 Trainings
                    N22.12.94.01 Topic01
                    ...

Many greetings,
Mike