OD Theory, Tools, and Practice: A Journey Towards Organization Effectiveness

In the light of globalization, changing technology, and the increasing value of human capital, it is said that standing still is not an option for an enterprise. The company must grow or it will decay. It must address issues of strategy, organization, and people. And it must continually make lasting and substantial improvement in its performance.

Towards this end, this course offers an organized and results-driven learning experience on the discipline of organization development—what it is, how it can take the organization to its vision and goals, and what interventions and tools people managers can use to undertake a planned, sustained, and system-wide initiative to manage change in their organizations. 

Course Objectives

As a result of attending this course, the participants will be able to:

• · View the dynamics of change, profitability, and growth of organizations
• · Identify organization issues and problems that impact on the organization’s capability to achieve its objectives
• · Develop a planned and sustained strategy to address organization issues and problems and to manage change in the organization
• · Use specific OD interventions and tools in support of the above strategy
• · Plan for the participants’ continuing development as a people manager and an OD practitioner

Course Outline

Session 1: OD and Organizational Excellence

• Change as a Fact of Life and Why it Should be Managed
• Organizational excellence as the only sustainable competitive advantage
• OD defined and how it can bring about organizational excellence
• Role of OD—then and now
• When OD will be successful
• Alternatives to OD
• Coming to terms with one’s values in OD

Session 2: Models for Change and Steps in OD Interventions

• Models for Change

- Critical Research
- Plan, Do, Check, and Act Cycle
- Action Research 

• Step in OD Interventions

- entry
- startup
- assessment and feedback
- action planning
- intervention
- evaluation
- adoption
- separation 

Session 3: Diagnosing Organizational Capability for Change

• Understanding the political and cultural realities in the organization
• Achieving unbiased thinking
• Using models to understand and diagnose organizations
• Getting to the root of the problem
• Using OD diagnostic and feedback tools

- questionnaires, interviews, observations, unobtrusive measures, survey feedback
- quantitative and qualitative data analysis

Session 4: Developing an Organization Change Plan and Selecting OD Interventions

• Preparing a Change Plan
• Person-Focused Interventions
• Interventions in Small Groups
• Interventions in Large Systems
• Using OD Process and Evaluation Tools to support interventions

- process consulting, role and responsibility charting, work flow mapping, pareto charts
- organizational climate survey, organizational health index, team effectiveness grid, behavioral measures

Session 5: Growth Challenges for the People Manager/OD Practitioner

• Identifying one’s critical consulting skills requirements
• Preparing a self-development plan as a change agent

Methodology

Hands on practices, simulations, feedback, and discussions