Org Chart Studio Team · December 27, 2025
How to Create an Organizational Chart: Complete Guide
Key Takeaways:
- Start with your data, not your tool. Names, titles, reporting relationships. Get these into a spreadsheet before you touch any software.
- Choose the right org chart type for your structure: hierarchical for traditional companies, flat for startups, matrix for cross-functional teams.
- PowerPoint and Google Sheets work for teams under 30. Beyond that, you'll spend more time fighting the tool than building the chart.
- The org chart you'll actually maintain beats the perfect org chart you'll abandon in three months.
Someone asked you to create an org chart. Probably with the phrase "shouldn't take long" attached.
So you open PowerPoint, stare at a blank slide, and realize you don't actually know who reports to whom in half the departments. An hour later, you're manually drawing boxes and questioning your career choices.
Here's what most org chart guides won't tell you: the tool is the easy part. The hard part is getting clean data. Once you have that, the chart practically builds itself.
What is an organizational chart?
An organizational chart is a diagram showing reporting relationships within a company or team. Each person gets a box. Lines connect the boxes to show who reports to whom. The person with no one above them sits at the top.
That's it. Boxes and lines. The concept hasn't changed since a railroad engineer named Daniel McCallum drew the first org chart in 1854.
What has changed: the tools. And most of them overcomplicate a simple problem.
What are the different types of org charts?
Not every company looks like a pyramid. Before you build anything, figure out which structure matches your reality.
Hierarchical org chart
The classic. CEO at the top, layers of management below, individual contributors at the bottom. Clear chain of command. Everyone reports to exactly one person.
This is what most people picture when they hear "org chart." It works for traditional companies with defined departments and management layers. Most of this guide assumes you're building one of these.
Flat org chart
Few or no management layers between leadership and employees. Common in startups and small teams where everyone reports directly to the founder or a small leadership group.
A flat org chart is simple to draw but can signal growing pains. When one person has 15 direct reports, something eventually breaks. According to research from Deloitte's human capital trends, organizations are increasingly experimenting with flatter structures, but most still rely on some hierarchy for accountability.
Matrix org chart
Employees report to multiple managers. A developer might report to their engineering manager for day-to-day work and to a project manager for a specific product launch.
Matrix structures show up in project-based organizations and companies with cross-functional teams. They're harder to draw because you need dotted lines to show secondary reporting relationships. They're also harder to live with. Ask anyone who's had two bosses with conflicting priorities.
Divisional org chart
The company splits into semi-autonomous divisions, each with its own leadership structure. Divisions might be organized by product line, geography, or customer segment.
Large corporations use this structure. Each division essentially has its own hierarchical org chart, with a top-level chart showing how divisions relate to the parent company.
Which type should you use?
For most teams building their first org chart: hierarchical. It's the clearest, the easiest to maintain, and what people expect to see.
If your organization genuinely has matrix reporting, you'll need a tool that supports dotted lines. PowerPoint can do it (painfully). Dedicated org chart tools handle it better.
What do common org chart terms mean?
A few terms you'll encounter when creating org charts:
Span of control: How many people report directly to one manager. A manager with 8 direct reports has a span of control of 8. Too wide (15+) and managers can't give adequate attention. Too narrow (2-3) and you've got too many management layers.
Direct reports: People who report immediately to a manager. If Sarah manages Marcus and Priya, they're her direct reports.
Indirect reports: Everyone below a manager in the hierarchy, not just immediate reports. If Marcus manages David and Ana, then David and Ana are Sarah's indirect reports.
Dotted line reporting: A secondary reporting relationship, usually shown with a dashed line. The employee doesn't officially report to this person but works closely with them or receives direction from them.
Solid line reporting: The primary, official reporting relationship. This is the manager who handles performance reviews, approves time off, and makes hiring decisions.
Marooned node: Someone whose manager doesn't exist in the org chart data. This usually means a typo in your spreadsheet or a manager who left and wasn't replaced in your records.
What data do you need before making an org chart?
You need three things for every person on your chart:
- Name: Full name of the employee
- Title: Their job title or role
- Manager: Who they report to (must match another name exactly)
That's the minimum. Department is useful if you have one. Location matters for distributed teams. But name, title, and manager are non-negotiable.
The Manager field does all the work. It defines your entire hierarchy. Get one name wrong, and that person becomes a marooned node floating in org chart limbo.
Where does this data live?
HR systems: BambooHR, Workday, Gusto, Rippling. All of them export employee directories as CSV. According to a 2023 survey by Sapient Insights, 89% of large organizations use dedicated HR software. If you're in one of them, your data already exists. Go ask HR for an export.
Spreadsheets: Most companies under 100 employees have "the spreadsheet." It lives in Google Drive, gets updated sporadically, and nobody remembers who owns it. But it exists. Check with HR, finance, or operations.
Your head: For teams under 20, you might just know the structure. Write it down anyway. Your memory isn't version-controlled.
What clean org chart data looks like
| Name | Title | Manager | Department |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sarah Chen | CEO | Executive | |
| Marcus Johnson | VP Engineering | Sarah Chen | Engineering |
| Priya Patel | VP Operations | Sarah Chen | Operations |
| David Kim | Senior Developer | Marcus Johnson | Engineering |
| Ana Rodriguez | Developer | Marcus Johnson | Engineering |
| James Wilson | Operations Manager | Priya Patel | Operations |
Sarah Chen has no manager. She's at the top. Everyone else points to exactly one person in the Manager column, and that person exists in the Name column.
Looking at this data: Sarah has a span of control of 2 (Marcus and Priya). Marcus also has a span of control of 2 (David and Ana). This is a small, clearly structured team.
If your data looks like this, you're five minutes from a finished org chart.
Should you use PowerPoint, Google Sheets, or a dedicated tool?
Depends on two things: how many people, and whether you'll ever update it.
PowerPoint or Keynote: Fine for presentations with under 20 people. You'll manually draw every box and connect every line. Microsoft's SmartArt helps, but "helps" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. If someone asks for changes next month, you'll rebuild half the chart.
We've written step-by-step guides for creating org charts in PowerPoint and Keynote if that's your situation.
Google Sheets: Built-in org chart feature that most people don't know exists. Faster than PowerPoint because you work with data, not shapes. But each box shows exactly one field. Name OR title. Pick one. The other gets buried in a tooltip that vanishes when you export.
See our Google Sheets org chart guide for the full walkthrough and limitations.
Dedicated org chart tools: Import your data, chart builds itself. Multiple fields per card. Drag to reparent. Auto-layout that doesn't require a Ph.D. in box alignment. Worth it for teams over 30 or charts you'll maintain longer than a single meeting.
The rest of this guide covers how to build an org chart in Org Chart Studio. If you already have data in a spreadsheet, this is the fastest path to something you can actually use.
How do you create an org chart in Org Chart Studio?
Three ways in, same result. Pick based on what you're starting with.
Option 1: Import from CSV
Best for: You already have employee data in a spreadsheet.
Step 1: Export your spreadsheet as CSV. In Google Sheets: File > Download > Comma Separated Values. In Excel: File > Save As, choose CSV.
Step 2: Go to orgchartstudio.com/studio. Open the command palette on the left. Click Import. Select your file.
Step 3: Map your columns. The tool asks which column is Name, which is Manager, which is Title. Pick from the dropdowns. It validates your data and flags problems like circular reporting or managers who don't exist in your list.
Step 4: Click import. Done.
Your chart appears with everyone positioned correctly. No dragging. No aligning. The whole process takes about five minutes, and most of that is finding the CSV on your computer.
Option 2: Build on the canvas
Best for: Creating org charts from scratch with a small team.
Step 1: Go to orgchartstudio.com/studio. Double-click anywhere to create your first card. Enter name, title, department.
Step 2: Hover over any card. Four handles appear. Bottom handle adds a direct report. Side handles add peers at the same level.
Step 3: Double-click any card to edit. Drag cards to reorder siblings. Drag onto another person to reparent them.
The layout adjusts automatically. You never manually draw a connector line.
Option 3: Use table view
Best for: You think in spreadsheets, not diagrams.
Open the command palette. Select Table View. You get rows and columns. Add names, assign managers, watch the chart build in real-time.
Same result as canvas editing, different input method.
How do you customize an org chart layout?
Org Chart Studio keeps styling minimal on purpose. Grayscale boxes, clean lines, professional output. Nobody needs to know you made this in five minutes.
What you can adjust:
Spacing: Five presets from Roomy to Compact. Pick based on screen size or how many people you're showing.
Sibling order: Drag cards left or right to reorder people at the same level.
Zoom: Toolbar controls let you zoom in on a branch or fit everything to screen.
Card content: Each card shows name, title, and department. All visible. None hidden in tooltips that disappear on export.
What you can't adjust: colors, fonts, shapes. That's intentional. Org charts aren't the place for creative expression. They're the place for clarity.
How do you export an org chart as an image?
Click Export in the toolbar. Choose PNG.
Free tier: exports include a small watermark.
Export passes ($5 for 7 days, $10 for 30 days): clean exports, no watermark, high resolution.
No subscriptions. No per-seat pricing. Pay when you need a clean image, not every month whether you use it or not.
How do you keep an org chart updated?
This is where most org charts go to die. Someone builds a beautiful chart, emails it around, and three months later it's a historical artifact that confuses more than it helps.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. employee turnover averaged 3.4% monthly in 2023. For a 100-person company, that's 3-4 people changing every month. Your org chart is decaying constantly.
Three approaches that actually work:
Manual review: Set a monthly calendar reminder. Compare your chart to current headcount. Update what's changed. Takes 15 minutes if you stay on top of it.
Source data discipline: Keep your original spreadsheet current. When someone joins or leaves, update the spreadsheet. Re-import when you need a fresh chart.
Assign an owner: One person, usually in HR or operations, owns the chart. They update it when they process new hires and departures anyway. No extra work, just a different output.
The method matters less than the commitment. An accurate chart updated quarterly beats a perfect chart abandoned after one use.
What are the most common org chart mistakes?
No data source: Building directly in PowerPoint without a spreadsheet backup. When you need to update, you're starting from scratch.
Outdated information: The org chart shows someone who left eight months ago. Now nobody trusts it.
Too much detail: Every employee, every role, every dotted-line relationship crammed into one view. The chart becomes unreadable. For large organizations, split by department. Org Chart Studio's free tier includes 10 charts, so you can create one per team.
Unrealistic span of control: One manager with 25 direct reports looks wrong because it probably is wrong. The org chart reveals structural problems you might not have noticed.
Wrong tool for the job: Using PowerPoint for 200 people. Using enterprise software for 15. Match the tool to the problem.
Forgetting the point: An org chart answers "who reports to whom." If it doesn't answer that question at a glance, it's not working.
FAQ
How do I make an org chart quickly?
Start with clean data: names, titles, and who reports to whom in a spreadsheet. Import that CSV into Org Chart Studio. The chart generates automatically in under five minutes. Skip PowerPoint unless you enjoy drawing boxes by hand.
What should an org chart include?
Name, title, and reporting relationship at minimum. Department helps for larger teams. Some organizations add photos or contact info when the chart doubles as a directory. Include what answers "who should I talk to about X?" and nothing more.
How often should I update my org chart?
Monthly for fast-changing organizations. Quarterly for stable ones. The test: if a new hire looked at your org chart, would they get an accurate picture? If someone who left six months ago is still on it, you have a problem.
Can I create an org chart from Excel data?
Yes. Export your Excel file as CSV. Import into Org Chart Studio. Match your columns to Name, Manager, and Title. The chart generates automatically from reporting relationships.
What's the best way to draw an org chart?
Don't draw it manually. Seriously. You'll spend more time aligning boxes than thinking about structure. Use a tool that builds the chart from your data. If you must use PowerPoint, use SmartArt Hierarchy templates. If you want it done in five minutes, use a dedicated org chart tool.
What's the difference between a matrix and hierarchical org chart?
A hierarchical org chart shows one reporting line per person. Everyone has exactly one boss. A matrix org chart shows multiple reporting relationships, often with solid lines for primary managers and dotted lines for secondary ones. Matrix structures are common in project-based organizations but harder to visualize and maintain.
Ready to build? Start in Org Chart Studio. Free for up to 10 charts. No account required to start.
Org charts without the struggle.