Organization Diagnosis - The Management Edge : The Management Edge | Dramatically Increasing Performance and Productivity

Organizational Diagnosis is an effective way of looking at an organization to determine gaps between current and desired performance and how it can achieve its goals. Data gathering is done to determine the obvious and more subtle organizational issues which affect performance and productivity.

“Prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.”

OD interventions should not be considered before a thorough organization diagnosis is completed. Data will typically be gathered via on-line, confidential surveys of internal staff and management (and, perhaps, external surveys of clients or vendors), interviews of formal and informal leaders, studying the available data on the organization’s economic data, alignment of the organizations stated Goals, Values, Mission and Vision with the actual behavior/performance within the organization, etc.

The data is collated, analyzed, and incorporated into a report –a diagnosis– of the organization’s current state and the gaps between stated objectives and the actual performance. Recommendations are included for the actions and organizational changes which will improve the performance and reduce the gaps.

Organizational Interventions: These vary, depending on the issues and needs to the organization. The recommended interventions, such as improvements in inter-departmental communication, team building, leadership development, or a wide spread change management initiative, etc. may be in phases. Typically, ways to evaluate the success of the interventions are developed and implemented.