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Lesson 3: The Business Case for Conducting OD Evaluation and Appraisal

Course Requirements and Assignments

Read the syllabus. The syllabus contains important information about the course, including course objectives, course materials, technological requirements, grading requirements, and reading and activity schedules. Make sure that you read it carefully and ask questions if you need the instructor to clarify any points.

Important: As you work through the course, you will notice that some lessons contain assignments within the lesson commentary, not just at the end of the lesson. Be sure to complete the assignments as you come upon them, rather than waiting until the end of the lesson. It's important to begin your lessons early in the week (around Wednesday) in order to engage in dialogue in the discussion forums. Be sure to check back to add comments and read your classmates' posts throughout the week.

Introduction Video

Please take a moment to share some information about yourself with your instructor and your fellow classmates. It's important to get to know them better so that you can communicate with some level of comfort.

Blog Application Assignments

Blogs can “improve student learning by providing a structure for students to reflect systematically over time on the learning process and to develop the aptitudes, skills, and habits that come from critical reflection” (Zubizarreta, 2004, p. 15).

Throughout WFED 585, you will systematically reflect on, organize, and elaborate on what you have learned in each module and on what you have done in your career in the Blog Reflection assignments. Each Blog Reflection is worth 30 points, and your performance will be evaluated based on the elements defined for each of the specific blog, analytical thinking skills, and information seeks and connection with OD evaluation.

Specifically, you will use the blog to apply the concepts from the modules to a case study. The case study is based on a real-world organization and tailored to your professional needs. You will build on this case study during the semester, adding layers to your knowledge of evaluation and evaluating OD efforts. The blog applications will ask you to work through each OD evaluation process in a safe environment, where you can get feedback and make revisions.

You may write your assignments or record your reflections in a video and upload it. Further instructions on how to post and upload appear in each Blog Reflection assignment. Some assignments require written documents, but you may use video to supplement these.

Online Discussion and Participation

During multiple weeks, you will engage with your classmates in a discussion. The discussion questions will relate to topics in the course and ask you to stretch your knowledge. The conversation should be engaging, helping you explore issues from a variety of perspectives based on a variety of experiences. This assignment is active, requiring you to answer peers' questions, pose questions to peers, and provide support for your assertions.

Lesson discussions are based upon the assigned readings, lesson content, and your own research. You should post your initial response to the discussion board by Thursday night, returning to the discussion to answer questions and make comments on (at least) two peer posts by Sunday night. You will need to make an initial post before seeing other students' responses to the discussion prompt.

Comments and posts will be evaluated based on demonstrated understanding of the lesson, quality, engagement with others, the critical thinking demonstrated, and citations.

Interview Project: Interviewing an OD Change Agent

The objective of the interview is to determine the outcome of a specific OD change effort: What were the objectives? What was the protocol? What were the outcomes? Were the objectives met? In this context, change means a move from the status quo to something else. It is a move from a pre-change to a post-change state. The key purpose of the assignment is to research how OD and change outcomes are measured. How do you know that the OD change effort has succeeded? The interview should take about one hour. You should plan to record the interview and then transcribe the recording following your interview protocol and questions. (You can purchase digital audio recorders or mobile-device apps to translate audio into print.)

The interview assignment has four parts:

  • the interview protocol (including the interviewee bio and interview plan/questions), due at the end of Lesson 4;
  • a transcript and an analysis, due at the end of Lesson 8;
  • a PowerPoint summary of the interview findings, due at the end of Lesson 10; and
  • the class discussion (comparing, contrasting, and evaluating), due at the end of its designated week.

You may interview someone within your own organization (such as the CHRO or CEO), but if you do, you must investigate a change effort that did not directly involve you or your department. In this case, only organization-wide change efforts (rollout of a new benefits or compensation plan, corporate reorganization, etc.) should be considered.

As you conduct the interview, focus on using active listening, avoiding listening blocks while actively echoing and paraphrasing what you hear. Listen in order to see the world the other person sees. Your job is to be aware that the person is describing their own truth. Plan to spend around 45 minutes to one hour interviewing your subject.

Background

The key purpose of the assignment is to explore how OD and change outcomes are measured. How do you know that an OD change effort has succeeded? What steps were taken to assure that questions about impact or benefit could be answered?

Who to Interview?

Identify an internal OD/change/consulting sponsor. This is someone who works within the organization; they could be a leader in HR, learning, or operations, or in the C-suite. Your subject should have been heavily involved in the change event and should know how it was evaluated.

Resources

A note about the resources below: Some of them are very in-depth, with a deeper research focus. Review them all to get a broad understanding of the interview process. The protocol is there to create a structure for your interview and to maintain consistency. That being said, in qualitative work, you are expected to adjust the protocol when new information enters. The protocol should include a history of those kinds of adjustments so that you can monitor their impact. Even though, for our purposes, you will interview just one person, you should be designing a well-crafted protocol that can work for interviewing two or more.

Note: Resource files removed. You will have access to the files in the actual course.

Interview Assignment Instructions

Submit an interview protocol that includes the interviewee's name and biography, along with your interview questions (due at the end of Lesson 4).

  1. Schedule an interview time of 45 minutes to one hour. It is difficult to anticipate the actual time needed for the interview, as each person will respond to the questions differently. Keep track of how far you have gone in the interview, making sure that you get all the key questions answered before the time is up.

  2. Develop a list of questions to ask your subject (minimum 10). Here are some examples to get you started:

    • How was evaluation included in the change event?
    • What KPIs and/or dashboard criteria were used?
    • What did you learn from the event?

    You are permitted to send the questions to the interviewee in advance, but do not have them simply write answers and email them back to you. An oral interview should be conducted face to face or by phone.

  3. The interview protocol should include the following elements:

    • interview details: List your subject's name, role, and organization and provide biographical information about them. Identify who is conducting the interview and the interview's time and place.
    • introduction to the interview: Your introduction tells the subject who is conducting the interview, the purpose of the interview (what you hope to gain from it), and how they were selected. Ask for the subject's verbal consent to take part in the interview and for you to record it for transcription purposes.
    • interview questions, with probes: Along with your main questions, list follow-up questions intended to gain more information if the subject does not provide all the details or needs more clarity on the original question.

Conduct the interview, transcribe it, and analyze it (due at the end of Lesson 8).

  1. Conduct the interview.

    1. Read your introductory paragraph, explaining the purpose and process of the interview, as well as how the data will be used. (Use the information from Part 1 to create your paragraph.)
    2. Conduct the interview, recording the audio.

  2. Transcribe and analyze the interview.

    • Using the recording, write down what each person said, word for word. For this assignment, you will not need to include the “um”s and “uh”s. Transcriptions typically look like this:

      Joe: How did you get the executive leadership to agree to such an extensive evaluation process?

      Kate: We spent a lot of up-front time working with, well—the folks at the top needed some additional education to really get it. You know what I mean?

    • Return the transcribed interview to the interviewee and invite any corrections or elaborations that the person wishes to make (called member checking).
      • Revise the transcribed interview to reflect the suggested changes made by the interviewee.
    • Analyze the transcript for themes.
    • Thank the interviewee by email or with a card.

Prepare an interview summary and findings in the format described below. In your report of findings, critique the evaluation and appraisal process (due at the end of Lesson 10).

Prepare a PowerPoint presentation to report on the interview answers via Zoom. You are encouraged to be creative in this assignment. In your presentation, make specific recommendations for improvement in measuring or determining the success of OD change efforts in the organization you investigated.

Your presentation should include the following things:

  • a brief overview of and impetus for the OD effort, including a brief description of the organization and the OD need/challenge;
  • a review of the OD effort, process, participants, and other relevant details;
  • a review of the formal and informal assessments of the OD effort;
  • the interview summary of the effort and appraisal process, including
    • the challenges in evaluating or measuring success and
    • ways you will overcome or work around these challenges in your appraisal efforts; and
  • your own appraisal methodology, which the organization could use to accurately determine
    • specific outcomes accomplished as a result of the effort and
    • whether the objectives of the change effort were accomplished.

Rather than being a complete rehash of the interview, the presentation should focus on the most important and most interesting issues. Consider your audience (your classmates and instructor) and tailor the presentation accordingly.

The presentation will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • quality of slides, clarity of the ideas presented, and creativity of the presentation;
  • demonstration of an in-depth understanding of the course material and the interview; and
  • adherence to the assignment instructions and defined deliverables.

Work with your classmates to compare, contrast, and evaluate the OD evaluation processes in the interviews (due a week before the end of Lesson 13).

  1. You need to review one of your classmates' presentations from Part 3 of the interview assignment.

  2. Then, reply to that presentation based on the following prompts:

    • compare the change efforts in the presentation under review and your own presentation, identifying similarities and differences;
    • discuss how, in the presentation under review, the project team/organization handled the project closure and/or separation if internal or external consultants were used;
    • explain what tips and tools you will use in your next evaluation effort; and
    • identify takeaways from the presentation under review.

You will be evaluated based on how well you prepare for this class discussion:

  • You should know the interviews/change efforts well from the PowerPoint summaries you were provided.
  • You should be able to critically analyze the efforts and discuss the points listed above.
  • Your engagement in the discussion should be active (i.e., asking questions, looking for clarification, and expanding the conversation with your comments and questions).

Financial and Non-financial Performance Indicator Paper

Non-financial performance indicators are any number of quantitative measures of an individual’s or organization’s performance that are not expressed in monetary terms. These could include quality, customer satisfaction, employee learning, or market share.

With this assignment, you will write a paper adhering to the following guidelines:

  • Answer the following questions:

    • What are the examples of non-financial performance indicators in the article and video? Provide your thoughts on these examples. Which non-financial performance indicator should be added or excluded as an example? (30 points)
    • How does your current organization evaluate organizational effectiveness and performance? Briefly introduce your organization’s key performance indicators (both financial and non-financial) and then provide suggestions to your organization in terms of non-financial performance indicators. (30 points)

  • Follow document and analysis expectations (15 points):

    • The paper should be a single-spaced Word document with a maximum of two pages, 12-point font, and one-inch margins.
    • The paper should be edited for grammar, spelling, transitions, and readability.
    • The paper should include headings using the items from the list above. Headings should be boldfaced. You may use bullet-point lists as long as the explanation is clear.

Feeding Back Results Presentation

A critical part of any OD effort is feeding back results. This is often something an OD practitioner will need to convince an organization to do, showing the advantages inherent in taking the time to hear this sort of feedback. It takes time to arrange these kinds of opportunities, but the benefits are numerous. One of the main benefits of feeding back results is the opportunity for a group to agree on data collected, problems, challenges, or priorities.

For this presentation, please follow the instructions below:

  1. Record a three-minute presentation via Zoom.

    • Your audience is the executive team or change-event sponsor; you are convincing them to include feeding back results in their change efforts.
    • This is an executive presentation, so dress and present accordingly.

  2. Consider the following questions in your presentation:

    • How often should you provide feedback? Cite evidence for your rationale.
    • What are the most creative ways to look at the feedback's data, observations, and analysis? Share a minimum of three ideas, including your rationale for them (at least one citation). Why do you think they are good ideas? Make sure to really sell your ideas to the sponsor.

  3. Engage the audience so that they want to participate. This may require some creativity.

Citation of Sources

The required style for all assignments is APA. Use The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (seventh edition). Other resources for APA guidelines can be found using the Library Resources link in the Course Navigation Menu.

The Workforce Education and Development program does not view Wikipedia as a valid source for information cited in academic work. It can be a useful tool for quickly finding general information on a subject or for starting research. However, you should not cite Wikipedia as a source in papers, reports, assignments, and the like.

Notes

Some of your assignments will include group work. Please read the following information on working in teams and groups. Note that members of the same group may receive different grades according to the level and quality of their participation.

As a Penn State student, you have access to LinkedIn Learning, your one-stop shop for video tutorials on Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Access, Excel, PowerPoint, and hundreds more topics—all free to active Penn State faculty, staff, and currently enrolled students. Take tutorials to help with coursework, learn techniques for your own projects, and build tech skills to boost your résumé. (Tutorials are not required or graded.)

Reference

Zubizarreta, J. (2004). The learning portfolio. Anker Publishing.


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