Organisation Development
What is Organisation Development (OD)?
In my view, OD or organisation effectiveness (OE) is a broad approach to develop an organisation so that it is equipped to deal with whatever challenges it has to face. It is more than training and development because OD often encompasses organisation design, consideration of structural issues, values and behaviours as well as capabilities. The OD agenda is interlinked with an organisation's strategic agenda and it involves working across organisational boundaries.
When is OD most useful?
The question is 'when is OD not useful'? In my mind, if an organisation is interested in its future then some form of OD is required.
ABC's approach to OD
The core principle of ABC's stance to OD is the engagement of people in the OD process. Whilst this is more difficult to achieve in large corporates, it is absolutely critical in medium to small organisations. When people who work in organisations are involved and engaged in an organisation's future, the organisation has a greater chance to flourish.
Typically, a range of approaches and tools are used from strategy, operations, HR, process consulting etc. In essence, people from the client organisation are involved in a learning process rather than for OD to be 'done' to them.
ABC's approach
- Client briefing
- Agreement of process and stages of work
- Develop an appreciation of the operating environment of the organisation
- Design/ co-design of interventions
- Development/ co-development of supporting materials/ activities
- Sign-off
- Delivery/ co-delivery of interventions
- Review
- Evaluation
The above stages are iterative and are repeated for each stage of work. Most OD assignments tend to be on-going traunches of work over a timeframe of 18-24 months.