Conducting Assessments for Business Development
Posted by Akada. August 9th, 2007 | | No Responses YetAssessment and feedback comprise an important step in an Organization Development (OD) intervention. This step includes many activities that significantly influence the success of the OD efforts.
The methods used by Business Development Consultants (BDC) to collect and evaluate information about organizational functioning are strikingly inadequate in many OD efforts. One result of this is that some consultants initiate OD interventions without properly understanding the problems that prompted the interventions. Such interventions are often ill conceived and wastes valuable resources, exacerbate existing problems, or create new ones.
Assessment is perhaps best understood as the collection and evaluation of information to identify strengths and weaknesses in a client organization. It is the basis for many OD activities. Especially critical to an assessment is a consultant’s ability to identify – as much as possible – the root causes of problems, not just their observable symptoms or presenting issues. When causes can be distinguished from symptoms, the consultant and the client can begin to correct problems at their sources. One way to identify the cause of problems is to trace them to their sources by asking other people. Another way is to observe work processes or interactivities and attempt to trace causes through analysis.
The quality of assessment depends on the appropriateness of the focus area and the methods used to gather and evaluate the information. Focus areas include an organization’s environment, its internal structure and processes, and a client’s desired results. Information-gathering methods include questionnaires or surveys, interviews, observations, and analyses of records.
There are many methods that a BDC can use in assessments and there are many areas that s/he can assess. However, every focus area cannot be addressed and every method cannot be used in every situation. The consultant will need to limit his or her options by considering the purpose of the assessment and the client’s needs. He or she also will have to contend with issues such as practical limitations, time, and money. The consultant’s choices and the client’s preferences will affect the usefulness of the assessment and the benefits it yields to business development activities.
Purpose of Assessments
Assessment serves four key purposes in business development interventions.
1. It provides a means by which to evaluate an organization’s current situation – either because there is a problem or a client desires a periodic review of its environment. In the first instances, the consultant’s efforts might lead to identification of the causes of the problem which may lead also to future problems if not addressed.
2. It is the basis for feedback about the results of the assessment. Feedback can occur at different levels – individual, workgroup and organizational levels. Feedback can create an impetus for change and prompt support for action by providing individuals with a better understanding of the problem they face.
3. It provides background information for action planning for change activities or corrective action.
4. It provides a basis for tracking change and evaluating the progress of a BD intervention. Assessment information can be used to monitor the effects of external environmental changes on an organization.
The Client
The client is a major concern for a consultant when he or she selects appropriate assessment methods. In some cases, client characteristics may complicate the use of otherwise valuable assessment methods. For example, if a client’s records are inaccurate, they should not be used.
In most cases, client characteristics provide the consultant with clues that help him or her to select appropriate assessment methods. There are many client characteristics that can affect the consultant’s decision, such as size, structure, culture, previous experiences with assessment, and problem severity.
Size: An organization’s size is perhaps the most obvious factor for a consultant to consider when selecting assessment methods. For instance, observational techniques are rarely efficient with large groups because these methods are time consuming, and large groups might contain significant variations. However, observational methods can be effective with small groups. Assessments of small groups frequently rely on information gathered from observation and interviews.
Structure: If an organization is functionally diverse or geographically dispersed, the consultant should consider how the organization’s structure might affect assessment methods. In such organization, there is the possibility that significant differences may exist across functions or locations. Those differences should be considered because the consultant may need to take representative samples from the population.
Culture: An organization’s culture also affects the selection of an assessment procedure. The consultant should assess the nature of the organization’s work force because the employees may have different abilities. For example, the employees may read at different levels, speak different languages, or have cultural differences in regard to work, gender, authority, and management. Culturally diverse organizations should be assessed using culturally diverse methods.
Previous experience: Most organizations have had to gather information for purposes ranging from attitude surveys to employee-benefits information. If such efforts were poorly managed in the past – perhaps because individual anonymity was violated – respondents naturally will be reluctant to share information and opinions.
The consultant should consider the client’s previous experience when he or she designs assessment activities. To detect any problems, he or she should at least ask the client questions about its experience with information gathering. The consultant also may want to consider using more than one data-collection method so that results can be compared.
Problem Severity: When a severe problem must be tackled immediately, the consultant’s initial assessment activities may have to be focussed around it because of the pressure to take quick corrective action. The consultant must realize, however, that a severe problem can influence how people will respond.
The Focus of Assessment
An assessment may focus on many issues such as the following:
1. External factors potentially affecting an organization, such as it financial status, economic conditions, competitive pressures and legal constraint.
2. Results of organizational activities, such as the quality and quantity of products or services, organizational profitability, and the consequences of production methods on employee health.
3. How the structure of the organization affects its functioning; and
4. How the organization’s procedures and processes affect it’s functioning.
In addition to the large number of focus areas that a consultant must choose from, he or she must also consider from how many sources that data will be collected (levels of aggregation).
The focus areas of any OD assessment are influenced by such issues as project goals, consultant biases, resource limitations, and client’s expressed needs. In a worst-case scenario, assessment would be driven by a consultant’s biases, his or her lack of expertise and experience, misconceptions caused by limited understanding of organizational processes, or severe resource limitations. In this case, the consultant is likely to overlook significant problems, focus attention on issues of secondary importance, or miss the causes of problems. BD interventions based on partial information may expend valuable resources in the wrong areas and produce ineffective results.
Assessment should be based on a broader view for data collection and analytical procedures. A consultant’s goal should be to determine which areas are most critical to an organization’s successful performance, efficiency and effectiveness. To that end, the consultant must be familiar with the key factors that influence organization performance, efficiency and effectiveness and the relationship that exist among them. Assessment based on this broader view can identify general issues and then focus on specific ones.