A current-state model built from the org chart describes intent rather than how the organisation actually runs.
Why it matters when the plan changes
Every target model is defined relative to a current one, so an inaccurate baseline propagates into the design and the transition plan. A target operating model is, by definition, the desired state described against the current one, so whatever the as-is gets wrong is carried into everything built on it. Because the as-is is usually assembled from documents and interviews with people describing the official version, it captures the formal layer accurately, and the operating reality much less so.
The tension is between effort and accuracy. Documenting real ownership and actual decision routes requires evidence rather than description, which takes longer than collecting process maps. Most programmes buy the cheaper baseline and discover, during transition, that the thing they were changing was not the thing that was there. Research on strategy execution found only nine per cent of managers say they can rely on colleagues in other functions and units all the time, and that reliability is exactly what a documentary baseline misses.
In practice
A current-state model shows pricing owned by the commercial function. In practice three regions each set their own within a band nobody has enforced for two years. The target model centralises pricing and is designed as a small change. It is in fact removing autonomy that three regional leaders believe they hold, which the baseline never recorded.
Evidence
A target operating model is defined as the desired state, produced against a description of the current one.
Target operating model, Wikipedia (2026)Cross-unit commitments are the least reliable part of execution, and they are what a documentary baseline is least able to see.
Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull, Why Strategy Execution Unravels and What to Do About It, Harvard Business Review (2015)
What it cannot tell you
An as-is picture describes the formal organisation accurately but cannot, by construction, tell you who actually decides what or where dependencies really run. Built from documents and interviews with people describing the official version, it is silent on operating reality, and using it as a complete baseline for change will misjudge the size of what is actually being altered.
Questions
Structure and reporting lines, core processes, systems, and sometimes role descriptions and governance forums. It is assembled from documents and interviews, which makes it a good record of the official organisation and a weak record of the operating one underneath.
Who actually decides what, which dependencies the work really runs through, and where ownership is assumed or duplicated. Those are visible in decision records and observed behaviour rather than in process documentation, and collecting them costs more than most baselines budget for.
Because the target model and the transition plan are defined relative to it, per the standard definition of a target operating model (Wikipedia, 2026). A baseline that looks accurate but omits real ownership makes a change look smaller than it is, and the gap surfaces as resistance during implementation.
Test the documented version against evidence: read decision records and ask separately who settled specific recent contested calls. Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes and Charles Sull found in 2015 that only nine per cent of managers trust cross-functional colleagues fully, which is exactly where documented ownership tends to diverge from actual ownership.
No. What is needed is an accurate picture of the parts the plan depends on. A complete map of a large organisation ages faster than it can be produced, and the effort is better spent on the interfaces and decisions the change will actually run through.