Discuss the concept of organisational analysis and organisational diagnosis.

Discuss the concept of organisational analysis and organisational diagnosis. Describe the different perspectives of organisational analysis by citing examples. Describe how organisational analysis is conducted in your organisation or an organisation you are familiar with. How far it was successful? Describe the organisation you are referring to.

A systematic attempt to design work was first made in the wake of emergence of machine technology and mass production system immediately after industrial revolution in Western Europe. Since then several experiments in this field have been carried out at different times by different enterprise around the world. In India too, as elsewhere, the need to bring about changes in the way work is organised has arisen from the following socio-economic conditions:
1) Organisations, today, are increasingly getting automated and using new technology to attain the organisational objectives of increased efficiency. This has had a corresponding effect on a greater specialisation, simplification, standardisation and routinisation of a larger number of jobs.
2) Transfer of technology from a developed country to our own along with the associated organisation of work which nay not fit with the prevailing socio-cultural framework of India may have an adverse effect on the social structure and system of values of the people.
3) Organisations have become larger and more bureaucratic in their functioning. This has resulted in increased authoritarianism and inflexibility of management. Decision making is becoming more and more centralised.
4) Even as organisations have continued to increase in size, became mechanistic, and more task-oriented etc. the people working in the organisation are younger, highly skilled, better educated and therefore want to be involved in decision affecting them and their work. They are today less willing to accept routine, monotonous work and look for opportunities to utilise and develop their potentialities. Thus, it
appears that the way most organisation function is in conflict with the needs and expectations of the people working in them. This failure to adequately match the needs of the organisation from an efficiency point of view with the needs of employees on whom the organisation depends are reflected in increased alienation, poor performance, absenteeism, disputes etc.
In view of such problems, it is believed, that ways of structuring jobs and managing organisations that worked earlier may not work now, simply because the people who work in such organisation will no longer put up with them. An important question facing organisations, thus, relates to how they can achieve a fit between persons and their jobs so as to obtain both high work productivity and a high quality organisational experience for the people who work in them. The answer lies in the way work is organised and managed in organisations.
TRADITIONAL APPROACHES TO THE ORGANISATION OF WORK
The traditional approach to the organisation of work has been one of rationalisation involving the specialisation and subdivision of tasks, the minimising and standardising of skills and the development of methods of management prediction and control.
The approach has long history beginning from the writings of Adam Smith who in the "Wealth of Nations" had analysed the division of labour in a pin factory.
"One man draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head: to make the head requires two or three distinct operations: to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even trade by itself to put them into a paper, and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them".
Of all the principles of management expounded by the classical theorists, the principle of 'division of labour has the greatest implication for how the work is designed in organisations. The principle specifies that maximum work efficiency
will be achieved if jobs are simplified and specialised to the greatest extent possible. In other words, people in an organisation, be they workers or managers, will function more efficiently if they perform the same specialised functions repeatedly rather than spreading their energies on a number complex tasks.
BURAUCRATIC ORGANISATION THEORY
The importance of the division of labour principle was also argued by Max Weber, in his model of bureaucratic work organisation According to him the bureaucratic model of work organisation was the most efficient form of work organisation in which impersonality and rationality are developed to the highest degree. Bureaucracy, in Weber's analyses, describes a form or design of work organisation which assures predictability of the behaviour of individual in the organisation. To achieve the maximum benefits of the form, Weber believed that certain design strategies must be adopted, specifically:
1) All tasks necessary for the accomplishment of goals are divide into highly specialised jobs. Similar argument in favor of the division of labour principle was put forward, namely, that job holders could become expert in their jobs and could be held responsible for the effective performance of their duties.
2) Each task is performed according to a consistent systems of abstract rules to assure uniformity and coordination if different tasks.
3) Members of the organisation obey the law of the organisation because it is their duty and because those who administer it are superior in technical knowledge. It is also legitimised by the fact that it is delegated from the top of the hierarchy. A chain of command is thereby created.
4) Each official in the organisation conducts business in an impersonal formalistic manner, maintaining a social distance with sub ordinates and clients. This rationality and impersonality can be seen as a protection against arbitrary and abusive rule, a way of making his life in the organisation more predictable and stable and less dependent on the personal whims of an arbitrary leader. In turn, the member is expected to do his duty.
5) Employment is based technical qualifications and promotions on seniority and achievement.
The bureaucratic model of formal organisations is rarely found in pure form. Yet, in some way, all organisations exhibit some degree of one or more of its characteristics. It is a pervasive pattern of organising work in most large organisations including government and educational institutions. The reasons for this lie in the strengths of the system and its appeal to rationality and orderliness. Apart from being logical, it is the most complete system of organising work. Another important strength of bureaucracy is its ability to deal with emergency situations. Studies of floods in India by different scholars have shown how successfully the bureaucratic machinery was set into motion to deal with the problems without loss of time.
Other recent studies have also shown that bureaucracy has marked advantages for emergency administration, though having serious disadvantages for more innovative and developmental tasks. In their study of district administration, Dayal, Mathur and Bhattacharya found that bureaucracy allows grassroot administration to be carried out in a more orderly manner than other systems of management. The rationality and rule-bound approaches (typical of bureaucracy) involve the confidence of the public in its impartiality.
One may, therefore, conclude that all features of bureaucracy are built around the structure of a large-scale administration. Obviously, such organisations rely heavily upon hierarchy, specialisation, rules and impersonality with a view to accomplishing their goals efficiently. However, bureaucracy possesses several dysfunctional traits frequently overlooked by its advocates. For example, hierarchy, which theoretically purports to maintain unity of command, coordination and communication in the organisation, in practice, frequently wastes efforts of people and hampers the growth of their personality. Again, bureaucratic rules as implied in red tapism
(obstructiveness), usually become goals in themselves for human behaviour rather than means for accomplishing organisational objectives. Pai and Reddy in their
study of the Secretariat and heads of Departments, analysed 69 files to determine as to how the actual process of administration operates, how orders are given and how they are executed. The analysis revealed that government administration was highly inefficient. It was noted that the maximum time taken for the disposal of one case was 1,010 days, the average time taken being 211 days. Finally, the impersonality feature of bureaucracy overwhelms the personalities of its followers to such as extent that they eventually become" the slaves of rules, procedures and discipline.

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.

How do you construct a questionnaire for the purpose of organisational diagnosis?

How do you construct a questionnaire for the purpose of organisational diagnosis? Discuss this with reference to your organisation or an organisation you are familiar with. 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.
The approaches to organisational diagnosis vary not only with the nature of relationship between the diagnostic and the organisation, but in a very substantive way depends on: (a) the preferred domain of diagnosis,(b) the methodology adopted in diagnosing, and (c) the assumptions in diagnosing.
Since, I am working as Manager (HRD) with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).Today, BSNL is the No. 1 Telecommunications Company and the largest Public Sector Undertaking of India and its responsibilities include improvement of the already impeccable quality of telecom services, expansion of telecom network, introduction of new telecom services in all villages and instilling confidence among its customers.
Responsibilities that BSNL has managed to shoulder remarkably, deftly. Today with a 43million line capacity, 99.9% of its exchanges digital, nation wide Network management & surveillance system (NMSS) to control telecom traffic and nearly 3,55,632 route kms of OFC network, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is a name to reckon with in the world of connectivity. Along with its vast customer base, BSNL's financial and asset bases too are vast and strong.
Being a Personnel Manager of such a large organization, I am quite aware of the process of workshop method being followed in our organisation for organisational diagnosis.

Questionnaire is a very useful diagnostic tool. There are several questionnaire developed by organisational scientists in our country that are useful for diagnostic purposes. These questionnaire could be used with appropriate modifications to suit the diagnostic needs of each organisation. It is advisable to develop organisation specific questionnaire for diagnosing problems unique to the organisation. Comparative data may be available if standardised questionnaire are used for general diagnosis purposes. Participative methods of developing questionnaire enhance the quality of questionnaire through increasing the organisational relevance of items.

Ready made questionnaire have some limitations and some advantages. One advantage is that they are normally standardised and data from other organisations (norms etc.) may be available for interpretation and comparison purposes. The main disadvantage is that they may not suit the needs of an organisation seeking diagnosis. For example, most of the available questionnaire are developed in business settings and hence may be of limited value to educational and such other organisations. Secondly an organisation may be interested in having a look at a few specific aspects than studying everything outlined in the questionnaire.

• Questionnaire for organisational diagnosis normally measure the perceptions of employees or participants in an organisation. It is the aggregate of these perceptions that indicate the organisational strengths and short-comings.
• The employees/participants of an organisation sometimes are in a good position to provide dimensions/variables on which questionnaire can be framed. For example, to diagnose the organisational health of an agriculture university a group of scientists of that university were assembled and requested to make statements about what in their opinion is good and bad in the university. All their statements were collected, edited and a questionnaire was made. Subsequently it was administered to all the scientists in the university. Thus interviews/group discussions/meetings/workshops help in developing questionnaire.
• Another form of developing a questionnaire is to sample test any standardised questionnaire on a group of respondents. The respondents could be asked to indicate variables/items that should be used for diagnosis.
• In preparing a questionnaire, structured questionnaire are more easy to analyse data and for providing statistical information.