Lesson 3 Overview

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Organization development efforts are often complex, time- and resource-consuming efforts involving intricate planning and execution. In the simplest sense, you evaluate OD and change efforts essentially to know if the effort worked—or more important, because you want to know if the effort was effective, efficient, and/or achieved its desired objectives.

So how do you know if it worked? To determine whether your efforts have been successful, first define a few terms in the context of program evaluation:

• Inputs are resources used to achieve OD or change objectives. Examples could include time, staff, materials, equipment, and money. An OD effort uses inputs to support programs, efforts, or activities.
• Activities are what an organization or OD practitioner does with inputs to achieve its goals. Examples are training programs, giving presentations to increase awareness, or creating a new infrastructure. Activities result in outputs.
• Outputs are products of an OD effort’s activities, such as the number of workshops staged, participants served, printed materials distributed, and so on. An OD or change effort’s outputs should produce desired outcomes for the organization or participants.
• Outcomes are the benefits or results affecting the organization or participants after their involvement with an OD effort. Outcomes may relate to knowledge, skills, attitudes, culture or behaviors. Ideally, outcomes should result in sustained impact on the organization.
• Impact is the extent to which outcomes lead to long-term and sustained changes.

It is essential for OD practitioners to understand why you conduct appraisals of organization development and change efforts. In this lesson, you'll explore why you evaluate OD and consulting efforts.

Lesson 3 will begin a conversation about measurement through a review of the importance of Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. Key Performance Indicators are critical success indicators, proof that your strategies are on the right path, and that your goals have been achieved. They are the “scorecard part” of a balanced scorecard (discussed later in Lesson 10): quantifiable measurements used to analyze organizational performance. KPIs are aligned with organizational goals and strategies and can be used to measure wide range of factors from business performance to employee effectiveness, customer satisfaction, health and safety, security, and more. Key Performance Indicators will be the foundation of your business case as they provide the “evidence” that the change effort is beneficial to the organization. The other key role of KPIs is to share when things are not going well—they alert you to a the need for a shift, revision, or pause. This is just as important because a large percent of change efforts fail. If you are monitoring the process all along you should be in a position to avert a delay or failure all together.

Lesson Objectives

After successfully completing this lesson, you should be able to

• define the philosophy of OD evaluation,
• identify ethical issues associated with OD evaluation,
• explain the value and focus of an evaluation,
• identify key decision-makers and stakeholders in OD evaluation,
• identify popular evaluation methods and approaches,
• define key performance indicators (KPIs) and the benefits of using them,
• develop and apply effective KPIs, and
• explain why an organization would agree to evaluating an OD effort.

Lesson Readings and Activities

By the end of this lesson, make sure you have completed the readings and activities found in the Lesson 3 Course Schedule.