Through There is widespread employee and manager

Through There is widespread employee and manager

Through an informal analysis, Roberta Jackson has begun to clarify the organizational issues facing M&DDiv manufacturing division. From this analysis she has clarified key organizational issues that need to be addressed in order to fix the documentation problem. It is evident that the documentation problem is actually a symptom of the following underlying organizational issues.

1. The organization lacks a clear vision or strategy. 2. The organizational culture is rigid and reluctant to change. Earlier attempts at improving the documentation system saw some initial changes but change soon halted and the company slipped back into old habits. . The company is experiencing inconsistencies in workflow due to rapid hiring, regular turnover, cross divisional promotions, and lack of mentoring.

Much of the staff has little to no training or experience in documentation. 4. There is a lack of coordination between locations, as well as within locations.

5. The Rapid growth of the company has not been a smooth process. The resulting documentation issues are the following: 1. There is widespread employee and manager dissatisfaction with the current documentation process.

2. Delays and usability issues discourage workers. . Headquarter personnel have unmanageable workloads. 4. Constant change in temporary workers.

5. Many workers lack experience or training. 6. Production sites have difficulties using documents transferred from headquarters. Through the collection of preliminary data Jackson was able ascertain a clear sense of the organizational culture and the issues facing the organization. Interviewing a few relevant clients Jackson is able to learn that the organization is quite segmented and departments/locations feel their issues are isolated from the rest of the organization.

Jackson Identified Stewart Jones as the most likely project sponsor with the power to approve or reject the project. In this case there are multiple relevant clients in each location because of the complex organizational structure. Jackson had to interview various members from multiple locations to understand the scope and magnitude of the problems. Many in the organization were surprised that someone was interested in their plight. This was an important step in building rapport with members in each location and will aid in making them enthusiastic supporters of the change process.From this information, Jackson will formulate a formal proposal that includes project goals, an action plan, roles and responsibilities lists, intervention recommendations, and proposed expenses.

If the project is accepted, Jackson can develop a contract with M&DDiv that outlines mutual expectations, time and resource allocations, and working parameters. An important step in creating a successful strategy with a positive outcome is to properly and thoroughly diagnose the problem. The open systems model will enable Jackson to diagnose M&DDiv.

Through Jackson’s initial interview, it is evident that M&DDiv can be diagnosed at the organizational, group, and individual level. At the organizational level Jackson should work with relevant clients to develop a documentation strategy and improved work processes for the documentation system. M&DDiv’s external environment can be characterized by its rapid growth and growing consumer demands. In addition, new global economic conditions have pushed M&DDiv to offshore its older manufacturing processes as well as hire inexperienced temporary workers.

Because of insufficient inputs in the manufacturing process, a malfunctioning transformation processes the outputs and feedback generated by M&DDiv are unusable or inaccurate. For example, the external environment of M&DDiv is highly competitive and they transform new technology into documents designed to create innovative technologically advanced consumer products. However issues arising in the documentation process are affecting the organizations ability to respond quickly and efficiently to its rapidly changing environment.A systemic approach would show that the rigid organizational structure is not in agreement with the current strategy. M&DDiv needs to focus on standardizing outputs, so that documents generated in any location can be easily read and interoperated in another location. It is important to note that documents may not always be relevant in every location because some are specific to the geographic region where they were created. This will all help M&DDiv achieve alignment of its regional locations.

In order to convince Jones to adopt the proposal, it is important to make him aware of the opportunity costs, actual costs, and the potential outcome of the project. First, every time a location attempts to access a document and they cannot open or decipher it or it arrives late the company is losing time and/or money. Furthermore, the money M&DDiv is spending on document control supervisors and technical writers is not producing value for the company. In fact, it takes 4-5 hours longer than it should, and the recipient sites still have to convert or rewrite documents.

It is also important to make him aware of how widespread and deeply rooted the problem is. National headquarters and upper management have little knowledge of the difficulties facing satellite locations. It is important that that information is presented on exactly what the change process can do at M&DDiv.

Information on why the change is occurring, how it will benefit the organization, and how people will be involved in the process will be helpful (Cummings, 2009). He needs to understand that if implemented properly the plan will provide a clear strategy for document processes.It will ensure coordination of satellite offices with each other and headquarters which will facilitate a smoother more efficient documentation process. In order to develop a successful intervention Jackson will have to develop a plan that fits the needs of M&DDiv that ultimately can carried out by organizational members. The action plan will include reengineering of the organization’s core documentation processes.

This will allow MDIV to create stronger coordination among locations, and faster, more responsive document processing.The adoption of a new coordination technology such as ERP will probably necessary to control and coordinate the processes effectively. Jackson can begin by using the information gathered from employees and managers at all locations to set attainable goals for the project.

The project may seem to be more costly and time consuming than the company is willing to offer. However if Jackson makes the long-term cost savings of implementation clear, the company will see that they will actually be saving money. Enlisting the help of those key people will allow for a better likelihood of support for the change process.Then a performance appraisal of the current documentation process will be necessary to get a better understanding of the systems strengths and weaknesses. It may also be necessary to implement some type of mentoring and training for employees to improve productivity and efficiency. The most important element of the whole project will be to develop a strategy and vision strong enough to support the manufacturing division documentation process.

It has been shown that while the organization is reluctant to change, past change initiatives have had some successes.It will be Jackson’s responsibility to ensure that the strategy and plan proposed will result in long-term change. Great attention should be given to practices that will sustain the energy and commitment to change. Case Study 2: Lincoln Hospital: Third-Party Intervention If I were called in as the third party consultant at Lincoln Hospital I would have handled the intervention in a similar fashion. Except in addition to the conflict resolution intervention, I would have suggested a formal system for scheduling surgeries and ordering materials necessary to complete the surgery.The hospital administrators realized that high turnover, waning productivity, and interdepartmental conflicts were affecting the quality of service given to the hospitals surgical patients. The first two steps of the OD process are entering and contracting.

They work to preliminarily identify issues and establish relationships with relevant clients. In this case, as the OD practitioner made an informal verbal contract with the hospitals president. Some background history was offered and mutual expectations were exchanged. In this case entering and contracting were done simultaneously.I would have requested a more formal contract that not only addressed expectations, but the allocation of time and resources, and ground rules. It is very important to know how much time and what resources the hospital is willing to spend before diagnosing and implementing a plan.

This can dramatically change the approach of an OD practitioner. If the hospital is working with limited resources it would be unrealistic to propose extravagant team building exercises or retreats or suggest implementing elaborate ERP and communication technology.It may have also been beneficial for the OD practitioner to build some rapport within the hospital before jumping right in and diagnosing the organization and coordinating a conflict resolution session.

By establishing a healthy relationship early, the OD practitioner has a greater likelihood of success (Cummings, 2009). The intervention by all accounts in the case study was successful in producing positive change in the behavior and working relationships of Don and Mary. However, I would have established those relationships a little sooner.

Even with the background provided by the hospital President, there were still elements of the situation that the OD practitioner could not gain from the conversation. The diagnosis phase of the OD process was sound. The OD practitioner conducted initial interviews of relevant clients: Don, Mary, Surgical head Nurses, the vice president of patient services and medical services, the executive vice president, the president, and 25 physicians. This was a good representation of the stakeholders that would play a part in the success of the change process.

Through this process the OD practitioner was able to determine that both Don and Mary were at least partially responsible for the issues plaguing the surgical department. To assess the hospitals issues in the surgical department we can begin by evaluating the hospital inputs. The hospital operates in an uncertain external environment. Lincoln must obtain patient information from attending physicians, primary physicians, and medical supplies from outside suppliers.

The surgical department then transforms those resources through surgery to healthy patients.Other outputs may include patient satisfaction, waste, success rates, employee satisfaction, etc… Third party intervention is appropriate in this case. The two main antagonists have incorporated their respective departments in their disagreements. It is important to get an outside unbiased perspective on the problem. The first intervention involved hospital staff and any suggestions or comments they made were seen as biased. The gossipy environment of the hospital further emphasizes the importance of bringing in someone with no emotional or professional involvement in the situation.

Third party intervention has shown to be a good fit for this case, which is seen through the improvement of Don and Mary’s working relationship. However it may be necessary to go a step further because of the division between the other departmental staff. The long standing feud between Don and Mary has been incorporated into the norm and practices of the surgical department and staff. The third-party intervention does not address how those strained relationships will be addressed.A team process intervention may allow for a more wide spread change in the social processes that have caused poor performance and dysfunctional norms. Teambuilding would be a good way to coordinate each group of stakeholders to improve task accomplishment.

Furthermore other OD tasks like conflict resolution can be incorporated into the team building process. Conflict resolution my bee needed on a larger scale to restore trust and respect of nurses and surgeons in Don and Mary. The third party intervention was successful in improving the working relationship of Don and Mary.It is not clear how that affected the surgical nurse turnover rate or the working relationships between Don and the surgical nurses and Mary and the Surgeons. It is also not clear if that relationship was the only thing causing the problems with surgical resource procurement. There may have been a larger communication, documentation, or technology issues affecting scheduling and ordering of surgical supplies.

References Cummings, T. & Worley, C. (2009). Organization Development & Change (9th ed. ). South-Western Cengage Learning: Mason, OH.