Summary literature organisation development
Lecture 1: Cumming & Worley: organisation development and change
Chapter 5 – diagnosing
General model of planned change: 1) entering and contracting, 2) diagnosing, 3) planning, 4)
implementation.
Diagnosis: process of understanding a system’s current functioning, collecting info about existing
operations, analysing data, and drawing conclusions about the reasons for current performance and
the potential for change and improvement.
5.1 What is diagnosis?
Diagnosis is the process of understanding how the organisation is currently functioning, and it
provides the information necessary to design change interventions – happening all the time.
Organisation development is compared with a medical model (doctor and patient). Both organisation
members and OD practicioners should be involved in discovering the determinants of current
organisation effectiveness, in developing appropriate interventions and implementing them. Medical
model: something is wrong with the patient -> managers don’t experience specific organisational
problems, also when a department is functioning well. Diagnosis is used more broadly than in
medical model
5.2 The need for diagnostic models
Diagnostic models point out what areas to examine and what questions to ask in assessing how an
organisation is functioning – simplification -> OD practioners must choose diagnostic models and
processes carefully to address the organisation’s presenting problems as well as to ensure
comprehensiveness.
Sources of diagnostic models: articles, books, field knowledge
5.3 Open-systems model
Systems are viewed as unitary wholes composed of parts or subsystems; the sustem serves to
integrate the parts into a functioning unit.
5.3a Organisations as open systems
Organisation exists in a larger environment that affects how the organisation performs and,
in turn, is affected by how the organisation interacts with it. Organisations acquire specific
inputs form the environment and transform the them using social and technical processes.
The outputs of the transformation process are returned to the environment and information
about the consequences of those outputs serve as feedback to the organisation’s
functioning.
Open systems display a hierarchical ordering (each level of system is composed of lower-level
systems.
,Summary literature organisation development
- Environments: everything outside the system that can directly or indirectly affect its
outputs (e.g. the availability of labour and human capital, raw material, customer
demands, competition, and government regulations)
- Inputs: human capital or other resources (e.g. information, energy, and materials)
- Transformations: processes of converting inputs into outputs
o Social component: people and their work relationships
o Technological component: tools, techniques, and methods of production or
service delivery.
- Outputs: results of what is transformed by the systems and sent to the environment.
- Boundaries: helps to distinguish between organisational systems and their environments,
help to protect or buffer the organisation’s transformation process form external
disruptions; they also assure that the right inputs enter the organisation and the relevant
outputs leave it.
- Feedback: information regarding the actual performance or the outputs of the system,
only the information to control the future functioning of the system.
- Alignment: how well a system’s different parts and elements align with each other partly
determines its overall effectiveness.
5.3b Diagnosing organisational systems
Three levels:
1) highest level: overall organisation (company’s strategy, structure and processes)
2) large organisation units (divisions, subsidiaries, strategic business units
,Summary literature organisation development
3) group or department (group design and methods for structuring interactions among
members, such as norms and work schedules)
5.4 Organisation-level diagnosis
An organisation’s design components represent the way the organisation organises itself within an
environment (inputs) to achieve specific results (outputs).
5.4a Inputs
- General environment: all external forces that can directly or indirectly affect an
organisation (social, technological, economic, ecological, and political/regulatory forces)
- Task environment: supplier power (increase prices), buyer power (retailers as Walmart),
threats of substitutes (replace existing offerings), threats of entry (new firms), and rivalry
among competitors.
- enacted environment: organisations members’ perception and representation of the
general and task environments
, Summary literature organisation development
- dimensions: rate of change, complexity, information uncertainty
5.4b Design components
- Strategy: represents the way an organisation uses its resources (human, economic, or
technical) to achieve its goals and to gain a competitive advantage in a particular
environment
- Technology: technical interdependence (the extent to which the different parts of a
technological system are related) and technical uncertainty (the amount of information
processing an decision making required during task performance.
- Structure: 1) for dividing the overall work of an organisation into subunits that can assign
tasks to groups or individuals and 2) coordinating these subunits for completion of the
overall work.
- Management processes: methods for processing information, making decisions, and
controlling the operation of the organisation.
- Human resources systems: mechanisms for selecting, developing, appraising, and
rewarding organisation members.
- Culture: basic assumptions, values, and norms shared by organisation members.
5.4c Outputs
Measures of how well the design contributes to the organisation effectiveness
- Organisation performance: financial outcomes
- Productivity: efficiency
- Stakeholder satisfaction
5.4d Alignment
- Does the organisation’s strategy fit with the inputs?
- Do the organisation design components fit with each other to jointly support the
strategy?
5.4e Analysis
- What is the company’s general environment?
- What is the company’s task environment?
- Steinway’s strategy of organisation design: piano maker
o What is the company’s strategy?
o What are the company’s technology, structure, management processes, human
resources systems, and culture?
5.5 Group level diagnosis
5.5a Inputs
Organisation design and culture are the major inputs.
5.5b Design components
- Goal clarity: how well the group understands its objectives
- Task structure: how the group’s work is designed
- Group composition: membership of groups
- Team functioning: how members relate to each other
- Performance norms: member beliefs about how the group should perform its task and
what levels of performance are acceptable.
5.5c Outputs
Team effectiveness: performance & quality of work life
5.5d Alignment
- Does the group design fit with the inputs?
- Do the group design components fit with each other?
5.5e Analysis
- How clear are the group’s goals?
- What is the group’s task structure?
- What is the composition of the group?
Lecture 1: Cumming & Worley: organisation development and change
Chapter 5 – diagnosing
General model of planned change: 1) entering and contracting, 2) diagnosing, 3) planning, 4)
implementation.
Diagnosis: process of understanding a system’s current functioning, collecting info about existing
operations, analysing data, and drawing conclusions about the reasons for current performance and
the potential for change and improvement.
5.1 What is diagnosis?
Diagnosis is the process of understanding how the organisation is currently functioning, and it
provides the information necessary to design change interventions – happening all the time.
Organisation development is compared with a medical model (doctor and patient). Both organisation
members and OD practicioners should be involved in discovering the determinants of current
organisation effectiveness, in developing appropriate interventions and implementing them. Medical
model: something is wrong with the patient -> managers don’t experience specific organisational
problems, also when a department is functioning well. Diagnosis is used more broadly than in
medical model
5.2 The need for diagnostic models
Diagnostic models point out what areas to examine and what questions to ask in assessing how an
organisation is functioning – simplification -> OD practioners must choose diagnostic models and
processes carefully to address the organisation’s presenting problems as well as to ensure
comprehensiveness.
Sources of diagnostic models: articles, books, field knowledge
5.3 Open-systems model
Systems are viewed as unitary wholes composed of parts or subsystems; the sustem serves to
integrate the parts into a functioning unit.
5.3a Organisations as open systems
Organisation exists in a larger environment that affects how the organisation performs and,
in turn, is affected by how the organisation interacts with it. Organisations acquire specific
inputs form the environment and transform the them using social and technical processes.
The outputs of the transformation process are returned to the environment and information
about the consequences of those outputs serve as feedback to the organisation’s
functioning.
Open systems display a hierarchical ordering (each level of system is composed of lower-level
systems.
,Summary literature organisation development
- Environments: everything outside the system that can directly or indirectly affect its
outputs (e.g. the availability of labour and human capital, raw material, customer
demands, competition, and government regulations)
- Inputs: human capital or other resources (e.g. information, energy, and materials)
- Transformations: processes of converting inputs into outputs
o Social component: people and their work relationships
o Technological component: tools, techniques, and methods of production or
service delivery.
- Outputs: results of what is transformed by the systems and sent to the environment.
- Boundaries: helps to distinguish between organisational systems and their environments,
help to protect or buffer the organisation’s transformation process form external
disruptions; they also assure that the right inputs enter the organisation and the relevant
outputs leave it.
- Feedback: information regarding the actual performance or the outputs of the system,
only the information to control the future functioning of the system.
- Alignment: how well a system’s different parts and elements align with each other partly
determines its overall effectiveness.
5.3b Diagnosing organisational systems
Three levels:
1) highest level: overall organisation (company’s strategy, structure and processes)
2) large organisation units (divisions, subsidiaries, strategic business units
,Summary literature organisation development
3) group or department (group design and methods for structuring interactions among
members, such as norms and work schedules)
5.4 Organisation-level diagnosis
An organisation’s design components represent the way the organisation organises itself within an
environment (inputs) to achieve specific results (outputs).
5.4a Inputs
- General environment: all external forces that can directly or indirectly affect an
organisation (social, technological, economic, ecological, and political/regulatory forces)
- Task environment: supplier power (increase prices), buyer power (retailers as Walmart),
threats of substitutes (replace existing offerings), threats of entry (new firms), and rivalry
among competitors.
- enacted environment: organisations members’ perception and representation of the
general and task environments
, Summary literature organisation development
- dimensions: rate of change, complexity, information uncertainty
5.4b Design components
- Strategy: represents the way an organisation uses its resources (human, economic, or
technical) to achieve its goals and to gain a competitive advantage in a particular
environment
- Technology: technical interdependence (the extent to which the different parts of a
technological system are related) and technical uncertainty (the amount of information
processing an decision making required during task performance.
- Structure: 1) for dividing the overall work of an organisation into subunits that can assign
tasks to groups or individuals and 2) coordinating these subunits for completion of the
overall work.
- Management processes: methods for processing information, making decisions, and
controlling the operation of the organisation.
- Human resources systems: mechanisms for selecting, developing, appraising, and
rewarding organisation members.
- Culture: basic assumptions, values, and norms shared by organisation members.
5.4c Outputs
Measures of how well the design contributes to the organisation effectiveness
- Organisation performance: financial outcomes
- Productivity: efficiency
- Stakeholder satisfaction
5.4d Alignment
- Does the organisation’s strategy fit with the inputs?
- Do the organisation design components fit with each other to jointly support the
strategy?
5.4e Analysis
- What is the company’s general environment?
- What is the company’s task environment?
- Steinway’s strategy of organisation design: piano maker
o What is the company’s strategy?
o What are the company’s technology, structure, management processes, human
resources systems, and culture?
5.5 Group level diagnosis
5.5a Inputs
Organisation design and culture are the major inputs.
5.5b Design components
- Goal clarity: how well the group understands its objectives
- Task structure: how the group’s work is designed
- Group composition: membership of groups
- Team functioning: how members relate to each other
- Performance norms: member beliefs about how the group should perform its task and
what levels of performance are acceptable.
5.5c Outputs
Team effectiveness: performance & quality of work life
5.5d Alignment
- Does the group design fit with the inputs?
- Do the group design components fit with each other?
5.5e Analysis
- How clear are the group’s goals?
- What is the group’s task structure?
- What is the composition of the group?
