Imagine you’re the CEO of a large established business. You’re considering launching a new venture based on Product X. It’s risky, but it could be the key to future growth. So what would you think about?

You might focus on the product and service. Is it innovative enough? Do customers want it? Or you might focus on the business case. What’s the forecast? Scenarios? Investment level?

But among these questions, the one that is usually under-considered is organization. And yet it may be more critical than the other questions being debated.

This might be surprising for anyone that knows me. I’m not traditionally an “organization guy”. My background is in strategy, insight and product. But having worked on a range of new ventures and startups, I’ve seen organization come up time-and-time again, as a critical factor. It determines team cohesion, velocity and agility.

“Organization” in this context means a few things, such as:

• The talent working directly on the new venture
• How the new venture team works with others at the wider company (both for execution and oversight purposes)
• The culture of both the parent company and the new venture

To put it into perspective, just look at the startup world. Early stage investors focus very heavily on the team. Who are they? What’s their track record? Do they together form an effective team? The opportunity and plan could be “right”, but investors will back out if the team is wrong.

The org question for new ventures is even more complex than it is for startups, because it involves two entities. And the consequences of the org question are greater. Getting it right means having the best of both worlds: startup agility and large company resources. Getting it wrong means being another failed venture, crippled by bureaucracy and large company indecision.

In future postings, I plan on sharing thoughts on these org questions in more detail.

But for now, if you’re a C-level exec thinking about launching that new thing, ask yourself if you’re focusing on the org question at least as much as an early stage investor focusing on a startup team. If not, the venture may be handicapped before it even gets off the ground.