Od Interventions Case Study free essay sample

Organization Development has been defined as a process by which behavioral science knowledge and practices are used to help organizations to achieve greater effectiveness, including improved quality of life, increased productivity, and improved product and service quality. Its focus is on improving the organizations ability to assess and to solve its own problems to move the organization to a higher level of functioning by improving the performance and satisfaction of organization members. At Tata Consultancy Services Limited, (TCSL), too OD interventions have been instrumental in facilitating change management and bringing about competitive advantage. OD has contributed to redefining the organization’s relationship to its environment, its markets and key stakeholders. This paper briefly explores an overview of OD interventions at organizational level, and focuses in particular on the case of a large relationship within the organization wherein OD has brought about a paradigm shift especially in the cultural perspective. We will write a custom essay sample on Od Interventions Case Study or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The structural alignment and commensurate cultural changes thereof have been facilitated in a deliberate manner to improve the total system – the relationship and its parts in the context of the larger market environment. Introduction: TCS -An Organizational Perspective The Pre-OD Scenario: Our Strengths and Areas of Concern In the years 1998-99, TCS had grown into the largest Indian software company with revenues of over Rs. 600 crores and racing towards achieving its vision of being global top ten. As pioneers in the industry, TCS’s strengths included on time delivery, premier position in the industry in terms of revenues, focus on training programs, quality initiatives, use of good technical tools and procedures and encouragement of individual excellence in performance. However, TCS was also, at that point in time, grappling with a few areas of concern with regard to its operational paradigm. Mounting revenue pressures: The pressure to retain its strong premier position led the organization to tend towards short-term revenues, and relatively lesser efforts were being put into medium and long-term markets and activities (such as products and building up knowledge). Though TCS built relationships with individual customers, Relationship Managers investment on aligning to long-term objectives of customers. The approach, by and large, was of reactive project management and we were yet to espouse the approach of architecting proactive solutions for the customer. Selectivity in projects: There was a tangible tension at TCS, between generating revenues and organizing strategically, on basis of technology and business areas, impacting selectivity in projects accepted. Pressures from customers on schedules was resulting in faster delivery and hence, snowballing into further pressure on future schedules . Focus on specialization: There was diffusion of expertise and we were yet to focus on building strategic expertise in individual centers. Employees were rotated across domains and skills in the interest of learn ability as well as for meeting requirements. In a sense, there was heightened focus on Voice of the Customer, in comparison to the Voice of Employee. Efforts on Experimentation Innovation: The management at TCS felt that by and large, employees tended to go straight by the book. Though Dr. De Bono’s techniques were introduced and employees trained on these techniques to encourage innovation, there was a need to scale up on perceived rewards for experimentation. Rewards and Recognitions: The reward structure at TCS was, at this point in time, primarily focused on individual performance and we were yet to explore the institutionalization of team based rewards at the organizational level. Inter group co-ordination knowledge sharing: Sharing of knowledge was very centre-oriented, and although, informally, best practices spread by interaction and word of mouth, we were yet to evolve a formal system which would capture these for ease of replication across projects. Multiple centers and multiple projects within the same centre ended up resolving the same sort of issues, resulting in avoidable rework. Branding and PR: Image building endeavors were not yet an area of focus and, in a subtle way, this affected the sense of pride of employees. Among educational institutions, this meant greater difficulty in terms of attracting quality talent, which further aggravated stress among the few key performers in the organization. By the year 2002, management felt the conscious need to bring in changes in our approach to the aforementioned areas, in order to align more closely with the customer, business and market requirements at an organizational level. Alignment and Structure at TCS With respect to alignment, there was a need to create an environment of dialogue between system dynamics and human dynamics in the organization. Strategy comes from the market, form comes from structure; capacity from technology; and synergy from culture. The organizational design at that point needed to incorporate this holism and thereby bring in, a coherent organizational identity. The flow of philosophy to policy to practice and further to procedure in organizational design, needed to be re-looked at neutrally. In the interest of alignment of strategy and culture, the need for a dynamic process of dialogue between the â€Å"Generals and the Scouts† was also felt. Alignment and Attunement: As an answer to the above areas of concern, alignment and attunement were sought to be achieved through integrating and balancing out the four voices: †¢ Voice of Wealth †¢ Voice of Employee †¢ Voice of Customer †¢ Voice of Technology The Organizational Development interventions at TCS focused on balancing tensions arising from these four voices along dimensions ofstrategizing, valuing, serving, energizing, investing and improving. An internal organization workshop was conducted with top management for scenario building. This program focused at a larger level, on the â€Å"The TCS that can be â€Å". The idea was to challenge the conventional ways of thinking and to give shape to the key drivers of change through realistic listening and dialoguing. These workshops were followed by dissemination and communication of the scenarios with teams in order to develop a new language in the organization, consistent with the envisaged future scenario. As a fallout of this workshop, several representatives of senior management worked on building scenarios as for e. g. on TCS tools and approach to high end consulting. These looked at what we were and what we wished to be, our competition, changes and challenges with regard to our business models, technologies, products and support functions. Further, the factors that ould facilitate the desired change and focuses that needed to be redefined were clearly laid down. The OD Challenge: Creating order rhythm in the centrifugal and centripetal movements of the 4 zones Scenario Building Workshops: An internal organization workshop was conducted with top management for scenario building. This program focused at a larger level, on the â€Å"TheTCS that can be â€Å". The idea was to challenge the conventional ways of thinking and to give shape to the key drivers of change through realistic listening and dialoguing. These workshops were followed by dissemination and communication of the scenarios with teams in order to develop a new language in the organization, consistent with the envisaged future scenario. As a fallout of this workshop, several representatives of senior management worked on building scenarios as for e. g. on TCS tools and approach to high end consulting. These looked at what we were and what we wished to be, our competition, changes and challenges with regard to our business models, technologies, products and support functions. Further, the factors that would facilitate the desired change and focuses that needed to be redefined were clearly laid down. The scenarios addressed the nature of the struggle the organization would go through and etched out realistic possibilities based on present factors. The roles and context that would impinge on the following were detailed †¢ Wealth creation †¢ Factors which will enhance productivity and enhance the feeling of being valued †¢ Resource allocation and team-work †¢ Membership criteria and norms of the group Learning opportunities for individuals and teams Goal Alignment Balanced Scorecard: In the interest of better alignment, a need was felt to re-look at a few organizational processes and systems, as for instance, the performance management and appraisal system at TCS. A Teach-Train-Transfer workshop on Goal alignment was conducted, with help from expert OD consultants to build the context, to think through goal setting at TCS with a systems perspective to goal alignment to explore means of institutionalizing goal-oriented erformance management within the organization. The workshop further introduced the concept of the Personal Score Card, and clearly outlined what would define goals, outputs, performance management, Economic Value adds the ways and means for facilitating goal alignment. The Balanced Scorecard approach was proposed, introducing corporate goals, which touched upon the following: Voice of the Shareholder Financial Goals e. g. Wealth creation Vector of Technology – Technology Goals e. g. Quality, Cost, Delivery dimensions Voice of the Customer – Customer/ Market Goals e. g. Customer Satisfaction Voice of the Employee – Learning Development e. g. Employee Satisfaction Further the relevance of the corporate goal template at the relationship level was explored and the subsequent cascading to individual level (Organizational to Relationship to Personal Scorecard). Goal specification frameworks, derived from the key performance parameters of the unit were chalked out. While the goal was treated as a virtual entity, the measurement was extended to deliverables on a day-to-day basis (outputs). Further, workflow reviews were done with the objective of deploying an on-line regular review process and system to track individual performance against stated goals. The linkage with incentivesand value add drivers, was also thought through to determine the reward framework, based on published results as against goals. Hereby, strategic objectives and measures agreed upon by the function/ geography/ delivery and relationship heads would be cascaded to subsequent roles as appropriate, ensuring performance in alignment with the larger vision of the organization. Identification of talent for higher responsibility was also seen as a key focus area, highlighting the need to have a focused Career Planning and Mentoring process. The process of role alignment was further thought through, as well as the need for assessment and coaching for role transitions. Towards employee satisfaction and towards ensuring sustained availability of sufficient managerial and leadership talent, the need to create succession plans at all levels and to track and reward high fliers was brought out. This further, lead to the formulation of career paths in TCS global services, consulting and products, supported by HR processes, tools and support staff. This structure was designed to enable a fair degree of flexibility in rotating at appropriate levels, which would provide avenues for individual growth. Besides, there was an exercise to bring out new role definitions in Human Resources (HR), focusing on alignment, energizing and task facilitation through HR. Business leaders dialogued to evolve the mission and expectations and further, to design enablers for continuous change, team work, and individual growth. PROPEL – The Intervention: Culture Building at TCS PROPEL was introduced as a revolutionary intervention with the dual objectives of facilitating the exchange of ideas and helping in immediate problem solving, while also encouraging bonding and self-development among and within teams. As the organization and its relationships grew, it brought its own challenges, whereas change remained a constant. PROPEL was introduced as a platform and a tool to help bring about this change, in consonance with the TCS belief of â€Å"Let us make it a joy for all our stakeholders†. Promoting continuous improvement at a cross-functional level was one of the envisaged objectives. Change management was enabled through alignment with growth strategy; by creating platforms for dialogue on the current and emerging experience of the organization. PROPEL has helped the organization build a culture of collaboration,creativity and also networks of relationships through its two modes: 1. Confluences: Listening to the voice of the employee in a team scenario, by creating a platform for open sharing of thoughts on a relevant theme. This is achieved through a balance of fun, introspection and interaction, while evoking commitment to self-development. 2. Camps: Platform for problem solving, focus on the Quality, Cost and Delivery measures of throughput resulting in transfer and adoption of best practices within and amongst relationships in the organization. Further on, this paper explores the case of a large relationship which espoused PROPEL interventions to bring about effective quantifiable results in the interest of relationship robustness, market agility and a fine balance in the culture perspective. The case of a large relationship at TCS: Team Alignment through PROPEL framework Spiral Dynamics Team alignment was a PROPEL application initiated for members of this large relationship, to reflect on its own state, to build a coherent statement of current realities and to channel potent restlessness and dissatisfactions within the relationship, into a convergent blueprint of responsiveness and new levels of maturity. It looked at redefining desirable role behaviors, and hence conveyed responsibility for movement at the collective as well as individual levels, for the team. This was brought about through the following stages 1. Initiation: The Spiral dynamics framework was used to map the relationship in terms of its evolution. Tools were administered to a group of Project Managers to identify the gaps between where the team is (current state) and where it should be (desired state) and the steps to be taken to bridge this gap. Spiral Dynamics posits that the evolution of human consciousness can best be represented by a dynamic, upward spiraling structure that charts our evolving thinking systems as they arc higher and higher through levels of increasing complexity. The spiral in spiral dynamics contains the blueprints of patterns for sequential development of Cultures. The spirals first tier is a set of six memes (beige, purple, red, blue, orange and green) characterized by existence or subsistence, or the â€Å"survival-level† concerns. Second tier of yellow and turquoise works to create healthy forms of all the first tier systems, in the context of an information-rich, highly mobile global community. 2. Awareness sessions Workshops: Overviews on Spiral Dynamics and its application to achieve team alignment was shared with theteam.