My score.

Share your thoughts on the OA Simulation that was specifically designed for the course. 

The OA Simulation gives a general overview of the situations that an assessment might face

in an organization. The simulation seems to follow the different areas of an organization that

mostly deal with the cultural aspect it does not put hard statistics on a pedestal. It balances the

hard approach with the soft approach when evaluating an organization. The simulation puts

importance on building an assessment team as it does on evaluating the organization. I feel that

the building of the team was missing in the assigned readings.

What did you think?  What was good?  What was bad?  Was it helpful? 

I think this simulation was helpful to an extent. It gave some situations that question your

mindset about how the outcome should be. The only thing that is missing is the dialogue that

usually follows after your choice which, I believe, is equally important in executing your
decisions. The simulation also does not provide outcomes for the wrong answers, which does not

show the consequences of making the wrong choices.

Discuss any concepts or terms that were clarified by the simulation. 

I always thought of an assessment as a numbers game because numbers don’t lie. But

after reading and doing the simulation, assessing the people throughout the organization is more

important than the numbers. Since people make up the organization, it is important for assessing,

communication, observation, and participation are key to finding information that can bring

accurate results to the assessment. One of the key figures to communicate with would be the

CEO, which is the leader of the organization. The CEO is not only involved in the assessment

process, but they are also part of the assessment. This creates a delicate balance of power

between the CEO and the assessment team.

Identify three concepts of the course readings you recognized in the simulation. 

The three concepts that I recognize in the simulation from my readings are; Motivation,

Leadership, and Enabling Environment.

 Motivation is mentioned in the organizational assessment model from Lusthaus.

Motivation can come in different forms, it can either come from internal or external

depending on the individual. For example, in the simulation, the assessment team needed

a goal to follow to help guide them through the assessment process, because without a

goal to follow than the team would be confused and lost in what they are supposed to do.

For an organization, it is important to assess the way the organization uses its incentives

so that it can maximize its motivation.

 Leadership is one of the main factors that make up the culture in the organization. It is

also a factor that determines the direction that the organization is taking. In both the

reading and the simulation, leadership is mentioned throughout them both.

 Enabling Environment is mentioned both in the readings and in the simulation. There

were a couple of situations in the simulation, like when the assessment team was going to

interview the organization’s customers. This is important because the customers are the

lifeblood of the organization. To make sure that the organization is healthy, you need to

evaluate the organization’s customer base.

Identify key concepts from the simulation that are important lessons learned in

developing your training materials for your Culminating Project. 

There are three key concepts that I have learned from the simulation in

developing the training materials for the culminating project. The first concept would be the

diversity of the assessment team, having a diverse perspective of an organization will create

accurate results. The second would be communication with the CEO. There is a delicate

balance between the leader of the organization and the assessment team, the leader of the

organization mustn’t interfere with the assessment team. The third would be protecting

information about the assessment. Information can be a powerful tool that can be used

against the organization, so information derived from the assessment mustn't reach the

outside environment.