We are proud to have invented, developed, and published a technology for designing organizations to be more effective called the Organizational Audit and Analysis (OA&A) technology. The OA&A technology has been evolving since 1976, was the subject of a book entitled, Organizational Design: The Organizational Audit and Analysis Technology published in 1986 (57).

This technology for organizational design has proven remarkably flexible in adapting to changes in our underlying theory and supporting technologies. It has been used from tiny to huge corporations. It has been used for slow moving and for rapidly changing corporations. It has been used for entire corporations and for their units. In fact, we have found the OA&A technology applicable to all organizations. Its robustness is attributed to two main features. First, it is a holistic, multi-stage process. Second, it remains up-to-date because of our commitment to research to keep making it better.

There are six main stages in the OA&A technology. The six stages in the OA&A technology are:

OA&A Stage 1. Strategic Assessment

The purpose of the Strategic Assessment is to find and identify the real organizational problems, to formulate what needs to be done, and develop consensus for the next step. In over 29 years, never has the presented problem turned out to be the real organizational problem. That's why we do not skip Stage 1 in spite of a client's consensus on its organizational problems. Many times our recommendations at this first stage to go no further because the problems can be solved by other means than a full Organizational Audit and Analysis. There is a technology for conducting Stage 1 called HALO. The theory and methods behind it have been published (85, 86, 97, 101, 102, 104).

OA&A Stage 2. Organizational Audit

The purpose of the Organizational Audit stage is to document exactly how the company actually works. We have found that knowing exactly what is being changed makes it easier to implement it. During the Organizational Audit we carefully and systematically interview members of the organization in order to determine what they do, how they do it, with whom they interact, and then we apply our Organizational Design Support Systems software (65) to construct a complete model of the structures and processes of the organization. The results are summarized with specific recommendations for corrective work which fosters acceptance for the need for the new organizational design.

OA&A Stage 3. Organizational Design

The purpose of the Organizational Design stage in the OA&A technology is to develop organizational solutions in order to improve the effectiveness of the organization. This solution is specific and comprehensive. This usually turns out to be the easiest stage to complete. The "difficult yardage" comes in OA&A Stage 4.

Stage 3, actually choosing an organizational design, is the topic of greatest interest to theorists. Real practitioners, however, also worry about the two stages that precede and the three that follow. They want to assure themselves that they are working on the right problems (Stage 1), and have a solid understanding of the current organization (Stage 2). A new organizational design is worse than useless unless it is implemented (Stage 4), monitored (Stage 5), and maintained (Stage 6). The Organizational Audit and Analysis Technology is designed to help practitioners succeed when they become involved in redesigning an organization.

OA&A Stage 4. Implementation Planning

The purpose of the Implementation Planning stage is to work out the problems in order to ensure a smooth transition from the old to the new organizational design. This is a critical bridge to be crossed and is usually the most difficult to perform. It is absolutely necessary, however, to do it thoroughly, intelligently, fairly, and with compassion. Stage 4 is, by far, the most difficult stage in the OA&A technology. It is here that making decisions moves from intention to actual choice. Stage 4 is inherently political and requires commitments, personal strength, and strong character to see it through.

OA&A Stage 5. Monitoring the Implementation

The purposes of this fifth stage are: (1) preventing problems and (2) making adjustments and modifications to the organizational design as needed in order to handle inevitable changes in the organization, its products/services, and its competition, customers, and environments. The challenges are (1) to find and fix problems before they get worse and (2) to seize new opportunities.

OA&A Stage 6. Organizational Maintenance

The purpose of the organizational maintenance is to help the organization adapt to change and keep improving itself. Some of this is simply preventative maintenance which helps save money and enhances the return on the investment in the organizational design. Often organizational maintenance involves ancillary improvements which flow from the organizational design work. Examples might include the redesign of the organizational rewards systems, assistance in an acquisition, and career planning.

Commentary on the OA&A Technology for Organizational Design

The OA&A technology is comprehensive, thorough, and systematic. However, these properties make it labor intensive and require investments of time, talent, and money. Some organizations prefer the OA&A technology because of its advantages. Some prefer other approaches which require less effort and precision.

Organizations undergoing rapid change and residing in "fast environments" will want to reconsider the goal of maximizing productivity to also include become more adaptable and even efficiently adaptable. We discovered the theory for this which we have published in many publications (61, 62, 63, 81, 101, 102, 104). This theory is called the theory of the organizational hologram. The OA&A technology easily adapts to this new theory.

The reason for the robustness and vitality of the Organizational Audit and Analysis Technology is our sustained research and development of the underlying theory and methods. Please review the section entitled Publications. That is, actual methods employed in the OA&A process have kept pace with the evolution of our theories and our clients' requirements. That way, each time our understanding improves, we turn around and upgrade the OA&A technology. For example, the gathering of position and task information is time consuming and tedious. To streamline and improve this work, we worked with AT&T (later Lucent Technologies) to develop a suitable, proprietary software system called the Organizational Design Support System software (65). This technological improvement helps us improve our ability to achieve the desiderata of swiftness (D5), robustness (D9), implementability (D10), ease of maintenance (D11), permit follow-up services (D12), reduce dependency (D17), and improve adaptability (D19).

Recently, Mackenzie's research has explored the fundamental nature of organizational goals (75), organizational interdependence (91), and leadership (104, 105). The thesis of the LAMPE theory of organizational leadership is that organizations work best when their Leadership practices, Authority, Management, and distribution of Power, and the external Environments are coherent, integrated, and operational. It is shown that when an organization is holonomic, LAMPE occurs. It also turns out that whenever the 29 leadership practices of LAMPE are working throughout an organization, it is holonomic (63), dynamically congruent (97), maximally productive, adaptable, and efficiently adaptable (104).

The Organizational Audit and Analysis technology for organizational design is a work-horse method. It is unglamorous, lacks glitter, but it gets the job done better than any other known technology for designing organizations. It is so useful that we have never had a case in which the new organizational design was not fully implemented. Doing it right the first time saves time and money in the long run.

Special Note:

Because of the very strengths of the OA&A technology for organizational design, it is not recommended as the approach of choice for very large organizations. We find it works best for multi-divisional organizations of less than 3,000 employees and functional firms under 750 employees.

The OA&A technology is flexible and could be adapted to larger organizations by assembly, training, and supervising the client's employees.