Participative Design Workshop

by: Jon Pe

"A fast and effective method for redesigning organizational structures to be self-managing"

Participative design (PD) is the basic building block for creating a self-managing organization. It is a method for moving from a bureaucratic model to one in which people restructure their own workplace. No design is imposed. It is unique because the responsibility for coordination and control of work moves away from supervisors to the people actually doing the work.

The vehicle for implementing the self-managing design is a one or two day event called the participative design workshop (PDW). Before any workshops are conducted, however, considerable planning and education are required.

The PDW is a flexible process that can be adapted to fit organizational needs. Depending on the size and complexity of the organization, a PDW can last one or two days. The PDW usually consists of 20-35 people from the organization working in small groups. The process requires one or two facilitators who have been trained in the PDW approach. Sufficient space for group movement, and plenty of flip charts for reports are needed.

Steps:

First: Analyze

The PDW begins with introductions and an overview of the agenda. Top management meets with the group briefly to review organizational purpose and the minimum critical specifications, that remain posted throughout the PDW.

Before the analytical work begins, the facilitator introduces the six critical human requirements for motivated work (Emery and Thorsrud, 1969) and explains how the designs of traditional work systems fail to satisfy these requirements. These six criteria must be designed into the work structure for people to be fully responsible and committed to their work. The group creates a matrix that rates the extent to which their current jobs meet these six critical requirements.

The facilitator also introduces the matrix for mapping team skills. The group creates a chart that compares the essential skills required by their work function to the existence of those skills among team members. Then, groups report their findings on both matrices and will use this information during the redesign phase to diagnose where gaps exist.

Second: Redesign

At the outset of the redesign phase, the facilitator presents the democratic design principle and explains how DP2 influences the six criteria for motivated work and how it relates to skill levels. Participants are now ready to focus on redesigning their structure.

Groups start by drawing up rough outlines of their existing work flows and structure. These charts show how decisions are currently made and how closely the current structure resembles either bureaucratic or participative designs.

Next, groups are ready to redesign their own structure to produce the best possible design for everyone. Their new designs will be measured against whether they enhance people's critical psychological requirements, build flexibility through skill redundancy, and reduce bottlenecks in the work flow system.

During a plenary session, groups present and compare their initial design options. Other groups give feedback and suggestions for improvements. The facilitator then provides a briefing on implementation practicalities and issues that must be taken into account in final designs. Based on this input, teams make additional adjustments to their designs.

Third: Implement

During this phase, groups develop a comprehensive and measurable set of goals and targets for their unit. Teams must develop their own full range of goals, addressing operational, business, human resources, and technical areas. The goals must be clear, realistic, and challenging. Psychology 101 tells us that employees will commit with more enthusiasm to goals they develop.

Initial team goals will still require negotiation with middle management to ensure targets are consistent with and support the overall organizational vision and goals. This is a key role for middle managers in self-managing organizations.

Teams also will determine training requirements based on careful analysis of their skill matrices. In this fashion, teams develop their own training plans rather than having them imposed from above. They identify the training they will need to function as a self-managed team.
At this point, teams specify additional organizational arrangements that will be required to become self-managing. These might include feedback mechanisms, equipment, job rotation procedures, support needed from other groups, and staffing needs.


Reflection:

Participative design workshop is a good way of redesigning the structure of an organization, because it not only allows top management to parcticipate in the discussion regarding the orgs redesigning, it allows each part or member of the company to have a say. atleast this way the company knows the needs of the organization and its members.

Source:

http://www.vaughanconsulting.com/pdw.html

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/34479329/Participative-Design-Workshop