Diagnostic Methods of Data Collection - Organizational Development and Change - Essay Example

The first step would be to collect information on the current working condition which would be either using questionnaires that would be handed out to the staff and also a number of patients, or sampling where the organization development practitioner would interview a number of the staff and patients too. Using the questionnaires alone might have a number of limitations since the staff and patients are limited to the amount of information they give out, so it would be advisable to use both the questionnaires and interviewing (random sampling).

Considerably, after collecting data, the analysis will follow, which is a major process that requires a lot of focus so as to avoid missing out on the little but significant details that would act as a barrier to development. In any working hospital, they are various groups of staff; for instance, there are those that work during the day and others throughout the night, there are those in charge of the cleaning/ hygiene, and those that conduct medical operations that might involve prescribing medication, etc. Reflectively, with the different clusters, the barriers of development may originate from the top-level management or the middle-level management and hence it is essential that the OD practitioner be alert and keen to figure out the source of the hospital’s problems.

Normally, what should follow after this is feeding back data to the management first and then, later on, enlightening the staff with the findings; however, this is said to be the hardest part of the whole process since it might involve the implementation of new ideas or even changing of the already existing ones. All the same, before presenting new ideas the organizational development practitioner must be to a certain percentage have confirmed that the ideas they are but to introduce will be effective to the advantage of the hospital and will not inconvenience anyone or any of the hospital's processes and culture.

After the dissimilar problems have been identified and solutions discovered; the comprehensive hospital and everyone in its working environment are expected to put into practice the new ways. However, it is hard for them to immediately adopt the new system and changes hence the OD practitioner is obliged to make sure that this is done as time goes by basically following up and keeping track of all the necessary operations. As the OD practitioner, one may decide to make an agreement with the management who will assist with the follow-up since the practitioner might not be in the hospital environment all the time. Read More