Friday, June 12, 2009

What is organisational diagnosis? Describe the steps and methods of organisational analysis.

What is organisational diagnosis? Describe the steps and methods of organisational analysis. Discuss the process of organisational analysis with reference to your organisation or an organisation you are familiar with. Briefly describe the organisation you are referring to.

Organisational diagnosis
Organisation is a framework that works when operated by people. The purpose or mission of an organisation provides the direction in which it moves. An organisation has several parts each having its own independent minds and they may not always function in a fully unified way. An organisation can put itself through periodic check ups or diagnostic exercises to assess its growth, dynamism, strength, weaknesses etc.
Most of the calculated management decisions are based on some sort of diagnosis. Every manager irrespective of his level, is in a continuous cycle of diagnosis-decision-action –evaluation, so long as his decisions and actions are not impulsive.
Organisational diagnosis is an exercise attempted to make an analysis of the organisation, its structure, subsystems and processes in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of its structural components and processes and use it as a base for developing plans to improve and/or maximise the dynamism and effectiveness of the organisation
Organisational diagnosis could be done as a periodic routine exercise like the case of periodic medical check up of an individual or may be undertaken whenever there is a cognizable problem that is affecting the functioning of an organisation.
Steps, method and process of organization analysis
Steps – Analysing the organisation, in terms of its components and their functioning is the first step in a comprehensive diagnosis.

Every organisation can be conceived as consisting of various subsystems or parts. Effective functioning of each of these parts is essential for effective functioning of the organisation. In addition the coordinated functioning of these subsystems also contributes to organizational effectiveness. For making organizational diagnosis the strengths, weaknesses and potential of each of the subsystems need to be examined. In addition the various processes that contribute to the effective functioning of the organisation as a whole need to be examined.
As emphasized by Bechard “The development of a strategy for sysmatic improvement of an organisation demands an examination of the present state of things. Such an analysis usually looks at two broad areas. One is a diagnosis of the various subsystems that make up the total organisation. These subsystems may be natural “teams” such as top management, the production department, or a research group; or they may be levels such as top management, middle management or the work force.
“The second area of diagnosis is the organisation processes that are occurring. These include decision-making processes, communication pattern and styles, relationships between interfacing groups, the management of conflict, the setting of goals and planning methods.

Thus organizational analysis may either focus on the structural aspects (subsystems, various components etc.) or on processes. The following is an illustrative list of the various subsystems of an organisation and the processes which could form a focus of diagnosis.
Methods of Organisational Analysis – The Professional Management and the OD perspective encompass the Economic, Political and Sociological and Social Psychological perspectives. These are also more modern and are being more frequently used. Among these two of the professional management perspective is vast and covers the entire management field. Since the focus of this course is on Organisation Design and Development, the OD or the Applied Behavioural Science Perspective is more appropriate for discussion here. Hence in the subsequent part of this unit and subsequent unit more details are presented relating to the organisation development.
There are many ways of analyzing and diagnosing organisations and their phenomena. The following are the most frequently used methods :

1. Questionnaires
2. Interviews
3. Observation
4. Analysis of records, circulars, appraisal reports and other organizational literture.
5. Analysis of hard data of organisations and various units
6. Task forces and task groups
7. Problem identification/problem solving workshops
8. Seminars, symposia and training programme
9. Recording and examining critical incidents, events.

The purpose of the analysis is “Organisational Diagnosis” . Diagnosis gives the state of the organisation or one or more of its subsystems and points out the scope for improvements that could be made for achieving organizational effectiveness. Hence the methodologies presented are limited to this goal.

Organisations can be analysed with different perspectives in mind. The perspectives one takes depends both on the purpose for which the analysis is being done and the professional background of the people doing organizational analysis. The following perspectives could be used for analyzing organisations :
1. Economics Perspective
2. Political Science Perspective
3. Sociology and Social Psychology Perspective
4. Management Perspective
5. Applied Behavioural Science or OD Perspective

Economic Analysis of Organisations - The economic analysis forcuses primarily on the use of money, allocation of resources, distribution and consumption patterns, pricing decisions etc. Economic analysis of organisations is particularly helpful for the first three objectives mentioned earlier. It helps streamlining the organizational efficiency, eliminating wastes and gives insight while planning for growth, diversification etc. However, when it comes to problems not all types of organizational problems can be answered by economic analysis.

Political Analysis – Political analysis deals with the tactics and strategies employed by the individuals and groups in the organisation as well as the organisation itself in the quest for power. Like economic analysis, political analysis of organisations is useful for understanding the organisation. Political analysis helps understanding many softer and strategic dimensions of an organisation. However, it has limitations in providing guidelines for the planning of growth and diversification of an organisation. It helps immensely in understanding organizational dynamics. However, such an understanding may become one-sided unless it is enriched with other perspectives.

Sociological and Social Psychology based Analysis – Sociological and social psychological perspective focuses on the social behaviour of individuals and groups inn the organisation. The formation of groups, habits, norms and values of the organisation, the process of socialization, conflicts, strikes, protest behaviour etc. issues are studied.
Professional Management Perspective in Organisational Analysis – For a long time management was not accepted as a separate discipline. With rise of management schools all over the world a new class of people with professional management background and skills have emerged. With the availability of a large number of professional trained managers and management scientists there is a professional management perspective that is emerging. This perspective focuses on various management dimensions of organisational life. Each branch of management can analyse a significant part of organisation’s functioning. The branches normally include Business policy and Strategy Management, Production and Operations Management, Personnel Management, Marketing, Finance and Accounts, Organisational Structures and Dynamics and Managerial Economics.

OD or Applied Behavioural Science Perspective – While applied behavioural science is a part of the Professional Management Perspective, with the availability of specialized knowledge in the field and the extent of human issues occurring in organisationl life has made it a distinctive necessity. Most often when a managerial perspective is taken an analyst is tempted to focus on dimensions like the materials and money as they are easy to deal with and get concrete results. It is easy to talk of investment decisions, introduction of computers, streamlining information system, introducing performance budgeting, advertising, pricing decisions etc. There are so many such variables the human processes and up becoming one such set. In reality it is an important set because it is people who are behind these decision and who need to implement them. Fortunately a lot of technology and skills are available from the applied behavioural science field. The OD perspective focuses on the human process dimensions of organizational functioning. The OD perspective primarily focuses on examining the attitudes, norms, values, systems, processes etc. that exist in the organisation. The OD perspective is essentially useful for organizational problem solving and organizational renewal. It is useful for every organisation to undertake periodic renewal exercises so that they can examine various organizational processes and strengthen the functioning of an organisation.

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