Change

Management
 Collecting and Analyzing Diagnostic
information
The Diagnostic Relationship

 The need to establish a working relationship with those who will provide information.
 The OD practitioner need to clarify to organizational members;

- Who OD practitioner members are

- Why the data is being collected
-What the data gathering will involve
-How the data will be used

 The answers to these question helps reduce the fear of organizational members who feel that
the data maybe used against them.
List of questions the OD practitioner
needs to answer
 Who am I?
 Why am I here, and what am I doing?
 Who do I work for?
 What do I want from you and Why?
 How will I protect your confidentiality?
 Who will have access to the data?
 What’s in it for you?
 Can I be trusted?
 Methods of collecting data

 Questionnaires

 Interviews

 Observations

 Unobtrusive measures
 Questionnaires
 Typically contain fixed – response queries about various features.

 Can be administered to large numbers of people simultaneously.

 Permits quick analysis.

 Permits quantitative comparison and evaluation.

 Questionnaires can vary in scope.

 Many questionnaires already available that rarely an organization would have to create a
new one. However organization-specific additions, modifications or omissions can be added.

 However some employees might not be willing to share honest answers.

 Issue of Response bias: the tendency to answer questions in a socially acceptable manner.
 Interviews

 Can be conducted in Individual or Group capacity.

 Probably the most widely used technique for collecting data in OD.

 Flexibility to gain insights and views.

 Interviews can be highly structured (resembling questionnaires)or highly unstructured (broad

questioning).

 Interviews in group context allows to save time and people to build on each other’s response.

 Identify common themes among the respondents.

 Amount of time required to conduct and analyze interviews can be quite time consuming.
 Observations
 Simply observing organizational behavior in a functional setting.

 Complete Participant Observation : OD practitioner becomes a member of the group under

study.

 Detached observation: Observer is not part of the group but may use film, video tape and
other methods to record behavior.

 Free of bias inherent in the self report data.

 Adaptive in that OD practitioner can modify in what he or she chooses to observe depending
on the circumstances.

 However, personal bias can distort the data and difficulty in interpreting the data.
 Unobtrusive Measures
 Data which is not collected directly from respondents but from secondary source such as
employee records.

 Records of absentees or tardiness, grievances, quantity or quality of production etc.

 Provides a relatively objective view of the organizational functioning, free from respondent
and consultant biases.

 Moreover, these observations tend to be quantitative, measured over time permitting

statistical analysis.

 May not include data in the form which can be used by the OD consultant.

 In-built biases of Unobtrusive measures: changes in recording procedures for a human

resource department may affect the past records.
Methods for collecting data (contd.)
Method Major Advantage Major potential problems
Questionnaires 1. Responses can be quantified and easily 1.Non-empathy
summarized 2. Predetermined questions/ missing
2. Easy to use with large samples issues
3. Relatively inexpensive 3. Over interpretation of data
4. Can obtain large volume of data 4. Response bias
Interviews 1. Adaptive- allows data collection on a 1. Expense
range of possible subjects 2. Bias in interviewer responses
2. Source of rich data 3. Coding and interpretation difficulties
3. Empathic 4. Self-report bias
4. Process of interviewing can build rapport
Observations 1. Collects data on behavior rather than 1. Coding and interpretation difficulties
reports of behavior 2. Sampling inconsistencies
2. Real time, not retrospective 3. Observer bias and questionable
3. Adaptive reliability
4. Expense
Unobtrusive 1. Non reactive- no response bias 1. Access and retrieval difficulties
measures 2. High face validity 2. Validity concerns
3. Easily quantified 3. Coding and interpretation difficulties
 Sampling

 Sampling needs

 How many people should be interviewed and who should they be?

 Usually not a concern because all the organization members are consulted

 Necessary sample size is a function of population size, the confidence required in the quality of
data and the resources available.

 Sample selection
-Simple random sampling
- Stratified sample

 Importance of adequate sampling : gathering valid data

 Techniques for analyzing data

 Qualitative analysis : Acquiring data in qualitative terms.

-Content analysis : Summarize comments in to meaningful categories and themes that effectively
summarize the issues, attitudes etc. of the respondents.

-Force field analysis: Method organizes information in to two major categories.

a. Forces for change
b. Forces for maintaining status quo

Step 1. Determining the forces for change and forces resisting change.
Step 2. Which of the forces is more powerful?
 Contd.

 Quantitative Tools: Includes methods such as descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis or

correlation analysis etc.

 Means, Standard deviations and Frequency distribution

 Scatter diagrams and correlation analysis

 Difference tests
 Mean, Standard deviation &
Frequency Distribution
 Mean: The mean is the average of all numbers and is sometimes called the arithmetic mean.

 Standard Deviation: the standard deviation is a measure that is used to quantify the amount of
variation or dispersion of a set of data values. A low standard deviation indicates that the data
points tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, while a high
standard deviation indicates that the data points are spread out over a wider range of values.

 Frequency Distribution: a frequency distribution is a list, table or graph that displays the
frequency of various outcomes in a sample. Each entry in the table contains the frequency or
count of the occurrences of values within a particular group or interval.
 Scatter diagrams and correlation
analysis
 Correlation analysis is a method of statistical evaluation used to study the strength of a
relationship between two, numerically measured variables.
 If correlation is found between two variables it means that when there is a systematic change
in one variable, there is also a systematic change in the other; the variables alter together over
a certain period of time. If there is correlation found, depending upon the numerical values
measured, this can be either positive or negative.
 Positive correlation exists if one variable increases simultaneously with the other, i.e. the high
numerical values of one variable relate to the high numerical values of the other.
 Negative correlation exists if one variable decreases when the other increases, i.e. the high
numerical values of one variable relate to the low numerical values of the other.

 Also called: scatter plot, X–Y graph. The scatter diagram graphs pairs of numerical data, with
one variable on each axis, to look for a relationship between them. If the variables are
correlated, the points will fall along a line or curve. The better the correlation, the tighter the
points will hug the line.
 Difference tests

 Can be used to compare sample group against some standard or norm to determine whether
the group is above or below that standard.

 Can determine if two or more groups differ from each other on a particular variable.