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1.
Institution development: bottom-up or top-down ?
This module on
institution development is based on elements of action learning, a
specific participatory approach that involves the staff in the situation
analysis of their organization and attempts to identify in common
discussion the major constraints of an effective working and learning
organization. Solutions to improve the existing management system will be
identified on the basis of the discussions between external facilitator
and the staffs of the organization.
So, at the beginning, the
facilitator avoids suggesting pre-established external management systems
but tries to understand the already existing system with all its strengths
and constraints.
Each organization already
has at its disposal an existing management system consisting of
simple planning, documentation, reporting documents and simple management
elements as regular staff meetings, sharing of responsibilities and
working plans. Even if these systems may exist only in an insufficient and
inadequate manner, they present already some organizational know how put
into practice and internalised by the staffs.
Our idea is, that
sustainability will only be achieved if we take up the existing know
how of an organization and its staffs and try to improve it from inside
thus bottom-up, instead of imposing an external system. In most cases,
implementing a top-down system will be beyond that scope of a staff.
Above all, we are
convinced that project management systems of international cooperation
projects will rarely be suited to national, regional or local partner
organizations. Organization and management of an international project
are characterized by a high input of external management know how and
expertise with high financial inputs, which may not be the case in a
national local structure.
With this in mind, we
suggest a strategy of institution development to improve bit by bit the
existing structures and management systems through a tailor made
medium-size system that ensures at the long run sustainability even after
our project intervention phases out in time to come.
2.
Situation analysis
2.1
Introduction
Our approach is a mix of
internal organization self-analysis and input of external know how,
because it is not evident that the staffs that often have the habit to
hold onto familiar systems, have an overall view of the major constraints
of their structure. Anyway, the analysis has to be done inside of
the structure and with the staffs and not outside in a classroom
workshop. The following module of organizational development will be
implemented by a 3-5 day visit to the organization and its branches.
Meetings with the staffs
will be arranged at different levels for group and individual discussion
in order to get a non-manipulated overview of the internal situation and
differing points of view. Documents, especially planning documents,
reports, studies and organization presentation will give a supplementary
impression of the organization's and staffs' performance. A short overview
matrix can be drawn out by the following columns:
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Name of the
organization and intervention regions
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Staffs (educational
level, job description, vocational training, work experience)
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Infrastructure and
equipment
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Products and services
for the operators
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Management: planning,
documentation, reporting, studies
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Problems identified by
the staffs themselves
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Their proposals of
services needed from facilitating agencies
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Remarks of the external
facilitator.
2.2
SWOT analysis by group discussion
The situation analysis
overview should be completed by a staffs meeting on SWOT self analysis (Strenghts-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats)
of their structure.
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Strenghts |
Weaknesses |
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Opportunities |
Threats |
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The SWOT analysis
requires drafting the SWOT analysis matrix (everybody forwards his opinion
on Metaplan cards) and documenting the discussion outcomes (meeting
minutes).
The SWOT analysis should
be done before the staff are aware of the results of the situation
analysis overview. In this way the results of the situation analysis
overview can be compared with the SWOT analysis and distinctions and
agreements can be very informative.
2.3
Staff-meeting on the results
A final staff meeting on
the results will discuss the problems and make proposals to overcome the
major constraints so as to bring about an efficient structure and
management. The meeting will design the guidelines for the organizational
development action plan.
3.
Action planning
3.1
Introduction
The organizational
development action plan should be a three to six month action plan. It
will be an agreement between the organizations to be involved and the MSE
promotion project .
The action plan focuses
on the major problems identified by the situation and the SWOT analyses
and considers the following commitments:
Organizational
development should be done step by step:
Existing planning,
reporting and evaluation documents should be improved and not be rejected
and replaced by external formats. Services to operators should be
analysed, improved and extended bit by bit.
The facilitator should
agree to make regular meetings and contacts with the organization
to be involved until a certain progress on the basis of the organizational
development action plan has been achieved.
3.2
National or regional workshops on organizational development
Once, enough experiences
are obtained from the field consultancy and visits to the organizations,
the experiences should be used to extend this organizational development
advisory activity by means of national or regional workshops. The
documents prepared at the time of the field consultancies can be used
during the workshops.
To avoid supply driven
and standardised approaches in the case of national workshops in this
respect, the participants should do a SWOT analysis before the workshop
meeting and take along the results and other documents that should be used
as example during the workshop.
see our webpage to
Business Development Services and Organizational Development:
www.bds-ethiopia.net/bds-components
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