The term intervention refers to “a set of sequence planned action or events that are intended to help an organization increase its effectiveness” (Waddell, et al., 2004, p.). Interventions can focus on an individual (coaching), groups (teambuilding, survey feedback, strategic planning), departments or subsystems (data collection, diagnosis and problem solving workshops), or the total organization (Hanson, 1995).Hanson goes on to state that an Organization Development intervention does not mean that an Organization development program is in progress. Evaluation of organization development intervention is “concerned with providing feedback to practitioners and organization members about the progress and impact of interventions” (Waddell, et al., 2004, p.189). Essentially, the process of evaluating organization development interventions determines the successful or unsuccessful of the interventions. Evaluation of organization development interventions provides feedback and it might lead the practitioner or organization members to create improvement and alteration towards the interventions.
Evaluation of organization interventions used to be seen as the assessment after the intervention implemented. However, evaluating while the intervention in progress also crucial for the successful of organization development interventions. According to Basu and Das (2000) it is necessary to establish assessment and feedback as an integral part of the organization development design. Furthermore, organization development interventions should be based on continuous data collection analysis and feedback for collective awareness and mid term correction. By doing so, erroneous in intervention progress could be detected earlier, thus it will lead the organization development intervention to more effective process. These explanations underlined the two distinct types of organization development evaluation, which are evaluation use to guide the interventions implementation process and the other type is where the evaluation use to assess organization development intervention overall impact.
When the evaluation use as guidance to the interventions implementation process, it is the organization development practitioner tasks to evaluate step by step intervention process in order to get more effective outcome. For example, if there was accompany who wants to change their work system, it is recommends for organization development intervention investigator to evaluate the process of changing before the changes, during the changes and after the changes. The evaluation could be done by monitoring and prepare for questionnaire survey for each stage. Finally, when each stage questionnaire is completed by the employees, the interventions investigator could combine the data and compare it in order to obtain ultimate result.
On the other hand, when the evaluation process uses to assess the overall interventions impact, the organization development practitioner evaluates the final outcome of the interventions. In fact, many organization development practitioners evaluate the overall intervention impact and disregard the step by step evaluation on intervention process. According to Basu and Das (2000) the combination of these two types of evaluation process will bring to more accurate assessment of real impact of organization development interventions.
The process one might anticipate emerging when conducting an organization development intervention vary because there are several things to usually consider such as, in order for a successful intervention to take place, the organization needs to be ready for the planned change. However these would depend on knowing what was analyzed in the diagnostic processes, that is, the depth of involvement of the Intervention, Evaluation, Adoption, and Separation. In terms of intervention, it is important to follow the action plan, yet be flexible enough to modify the process as the organization changes and as new information emerges. Evaluation means that a successful OD must have made meaningful changes in the performance and efficiency of the people and their organization. OD practitioner need to have an evaluation procedure to verify this success, identify needs for new or continuing OD activities, and improve the OD process itself to help make future interventions more successful. In terms of adoption, it means that after steps have been made to change the organization and plans have been formulated, the follow-up stage is initiated. In separation, it means that organizations must recognize when it is more productive for the client and consultant to undertake other activities, and when continued consultation is counterproductive.
Organizations also should plan for future contacts, to monitor the success of this change and possibly to plan for future change activities. Planned Organization Development takes a long-range approach to improving organizational performance and efficiency consultant in the change process is essential to the type of intervention made in the change process. According to Cummings and Worley (1999), effective interventions are based on valid information that is concerned with how organizations are functioning. This is such that even if an Organization Development consultant uses an intervention technique he likes, he will have good results. Unlike if it was not the case, the consultant would not have the desired results. However, designing an intervention would depend on how well the consultant knows how to or utilises his skills and expertise.
Nevertheless, the process/implementation issues emerging in the OD intervention would mostly be about evaluating change that may have occurred as a result of the diagnostic process that has taken place. This can be done by the use of tools such as the Total Quality Management (TQM) or the Business Process Reengineering (BPR). However, Cummings and Worley (1999) state that in order for an intervention to be effective, there should be the readiness of the organization to change, the organization should be capable to change, and the cultural context of the organization should change as well the change agent should be capable to do the task.
However, the process of evaluating OD interventions is often ignored. Biases often occur among the organization development interventions process. Woodman and Wayne (1985) mentioned that there are some issues that the organization development evaluation investigators tend to find what they are seeking and fail to find what they do not want to see. Once again, this happens on the basis of the evaluator characteristics (subjective characteristics). Another factor that makes is responsible for te ignorance of the evaluating process is that the author or the organization does not want to publicize their failures- the likelihood that they failed the interventions (Woodman and Wayne, 1985). Reports of the interventions evaluation outcome are often hidden.
Lack of gathering data could also be one of the main factors in the failure of evaluation of the organization development process. This is may be caused by the lack of choosing groups of survey. Tepstra (1982) mentioned that there is organization development intervention variable that might be related to this effect. Occupational group (subjective characteristics), is where the interventions evaluation investigator only use certain status in organization as their data source. For example, the evaluation investigator only asks the managers for the survey, and he/she disregards other employees, such as administrative employees, factory employees, and so forth. In fact, employees feedback is most important when it comes to the whole organization. The wider the coverage of survey, the better the evaluation outcome. Additionally, wider evaluation will help the organization to improve thoroughly.
Reference List
Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (1997) Organizational behaviour (3rd edition), Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Cummings, T. and Worley, C. (1993) Organization Development and Change (5th edition), West Publishing Company, Minnesota.
Cummings, T.G., Worley, C.G., (1999), Organizational Change and Development (7th Edn), South Western, Ohio.
Hanson, P.G., (1995), Answers to questions most frequently asked about Organization Development, Sage Publication, London.
Burke
Waddell
Basu and Das
Tepstra
Woodman and Wayne