Usually, one of the very first steps when working with a new organization is organizational assessment. That step helps me to understand what is happening inside the organization much better. To do that, I usually use a set of tools, approaches, and techniques. Those will include:
- using various electronic forms (typically multi-question questionaries);
- conversations/interviews. Could be 1:1 or small group interviews;
- structured observations of typical meetings and events;
- review of existing formal organizational structure;
- review of existing performance information, metrics, etc.
When asking a subjective question on some topic (let’s say, rate some parameter on a scale from 1 to 5) it is very important how you are treating results. Because even though 3 would be the middle of the spectrum of possible answers it is rarely the middle of actual answers, cause answers not necessarily are normally distributed. To illustrate a bit further – when asking a positive question, in general people are answering the above scale (so 4 is more likely to be the mean of answers.) Same way – when asking a negative question, replies fall below and 2 is more likely the mean. So, the only way to understand where you stand (is it good or is it bad) is to compare your results to the results of others.
With the tools we use, a lot of those are not invented by us (we are not trying to reinvent the wheel). Those are proven world-class solutions within our industry. Some of those tools were used by many-many (in some cases many-many-many) organizations around the World. So, when getting your results, it is possible to see where you stand in comparison to others.
Let’s go through some of the tools we use quite often.
Competing Values Framework
The Competing Values Framework (CVF) is an organizational cultural model, developed by Cameron, Quinn.
The Leadership Circle Profile
This is, arguably, the most comprehensive tool for measuring leadership skills, which is the first step in improving on those. It is actually rarely part of the first wave of organizational assessment (while sometimes, it is). But it is one of the cornerstones of our work with an organization. There is a separate section with more details on The Leadership Circle Profile.
Comparative Agility
One of the first agile assessment tools available. Initially developed by Mike Cohn and Ken Rubin. One of the strengths of the tool is that over the years multiple organizations used it and it provides you with a comparison of your results to those generic results (or to a subset specific to your industry). You can find more info on the Comparative Agility website.
#AgendaShift assessment
Probably the most Kanban-friendly organizational assessment available. Developed by Mike Burrows with little help from the community. More info about Agendashift assessment is on their website.
Kanban Maturity Model
The Kanban Maturity Model allows you to explore Kanban adoption in your organization in detail and find the most appropriate next steps. Find out how KMM could help with this…
As a result of the organizational assessment, you would get a written comprehensive report. There we would summarise all findings and suggestions on potential next steps. The unique part about the report – we find some similarities/correlations between data points from various tools/forms and narratives we hear during interviews. So, basically, narratives/stories help to explain data in forms. Of course, we highlight that in the final report.
A lot of tools above are much more than just tools for assessment. Those are coaching tools, so the intent is to continue with some improvement steps. With that said, it is possible to stop our cooperation just after an assessment. For example, you may choose some other service provider to help you with the steps uncovered during our assessment or to work on those with your existing internal coach – that is totally OK.