Chapter 7 and 8 Notes

Republic of the Philippines
Palompon Institute of Technology

Palompon, Leyte
College of Arts and Sciences

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
Prof 4
Organizational Development
Chapter 7: Collecting and Analyzing Diagnostic Information
Chapter 8: Feeding Back Diagnostic Information
Submitted by:
Escuadra, Jandell
Espina, Gerglenn
Formentera, Apple Jean
Gallarde, Rodge Angeline
Giva, Mary Marielle Che-Lou
Submitted to:
Mrs. Anchessa Antasuda Derecho
February 2024
Chapter 7: Collecting and Analyzing Diagnostic Information
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the importance of the diagnostic relationship in the OD process
- Describe the methods for collecting diagnostic data
- Understand the primary techniques used to analyze diagnostic data
Organizational Development relies on the information that were collected during

the diagnostic process. It was previously mentioned that there is a big possibility that
the data collected upon the Entering and Contracting stage may change in the
Diagnosing stage. In the diagnostic stage, new information may be acquired that may
cause a shift in the things that were discussed on the initial stage. OD is dependent on
the diagnostic information and these data will help assess how the organization is
functioning and these are the key elements that are needed to plan and to have the best
change intervention.
Note: The quality of the information gathered and the effectiveness of the
feedback process are critical parts of the OD Process.
The Diagnostic Relationship

Organizational Development Practitioner plays an active role to gather data from
the organization members. These data that are collected will be used for diagnostic
purposes. But before acquiring these relevant information, ODPs should first build a
relationship with those members who will be providing the needed information. Building
a diagnostic relationship with the key members will greatly impact the quality and
usefulness of the data collected.
With this, it is important for ODPs to clarify for organizational members who they
are, why the data is being collected, what the data gathering will involve, and how the
data will be used. By clarifying these terms to the key members being interviewed, this
will remove their fear that the data collected will be used against them.
Diagnostic contract is similar to developing a contract, which involves clarifying
expectations and to specify the conditions of the relationship. The answers to the
following questions provide a substance of the diagnostic contract:
Three Goals of Data Collection

1. Obtain valid information about organizational functioning. Building a data
collection contract is for the purpose of ensuring that the organization members
provide honest, reliable, and complete information.
2. Rally energy for constructive organizational change. Building a good
relationship with the organization members would help them to start thinking
about the issues that concern them and that they want to address. When the
relationship is good, then the members would trust the consultant; if the
members trust the consultant, then they would participate in the diagnostic
process; if members would participate in the process, then energy is generated
to commit for organizational change.
3. Develop the collaborative relationship necessary for effecting
organizational change. If the ODP can prove that he is trustworthy, willing to
work with members, and is able to help with the improvement of the organization,
then the data collection process will lead to a long-term collaborative relationship.
A long-term collaborative relationship with the members is one of the keys to
carry out changes successfully.
Methods for Collecting Data
1. Questionnaires
Advantage: This is one of the most efficient ways to collect data because they
contain fixed-response questions about the features of the organization. These
paper-and-pencil measures can be distributed to a large number of people
simultaneously. In addition to that, these can be understood quickly, and as a
result, data can be easily fed back to the employees.
Disadvantages:
- Responses are limited since questionnaires are fixed-response type of
method.
- The respondents may not provide honest answers to the questions.
- The respondents tend to answer the questions in a socially accepted
manner, which means that they play safely with their answers. This makes
it difficult to gather valid conclusions from those responses.
2. Interviews
 Individual Interview – involves a one-on-one interaction between the ODP
and the employee
 Group Interview – saves time and the interviewer can gather information in
one session. However, group settings may inhibit some respondents to
respond freely.
Advantage: This is the most widely used technique to collect data in OD. This is
a method where the interviewer can ask direct questions to its respondents. This
method is known for its flexibility because questions for clarifications are also
possible as the interview proceeds. With this, the interviewer can ask to clarify
the new issues that emerge upon the interview session.
Disadvantages:
- Interviewer responses can be biased
- Responses may be difficult to interpret
3. Observations
This method means observing the organizational behaviours in their
functional settings. By simply walking casually on a work area and looking
around, the ODP can gather information based on the different kinds of
behaviour in the work place
Advantage:
- Collecting the data based on behaviours in the work place
- Based on real time
Disadvantage:
- Difficult to interpret
- There may be biases as data will be based on observations only,
therefore, reliability will be questioned
4. Unobtrusive measures
Unobtrusive data are those data that are not directly acquired from the
respondents. These are data that will be acquired from secondary sources such
as company records and archives.
Advantage:
- No biases in response
Disadvantage:
- Privacy, access, and retrieval difficulty
- Difficult to interpret
Sampling
A sample is a subset or portion of individuals selected from a larger population.
Sampling is the act or process of choosing the population which you will be collecting
data from for your research. Example: If you want are researching for opinions of the
employees in your workplace about a particular thing, you could survey a sample of 50
employees.
Sampling becomes an issue in Organizational Development when data are
collected from selected members, behaviours, or records. This case is often observed
when diagnosing organization-level issues or large systems. For these cases, it is
important to ensure that the sample of people, behaviours, or records would be
sufficient to represent the characteristic of the total population.
Remember: The larger/ more complex the organization, the more difficult it is to
establish the right sample size.
Sample Selection
The most common approach to sampling diagnostic in OD is the simple random
sample. Simple random sampling is randomly selecting a subset of a population. This
approach is when each member, behaviour, or record has an equal chance of being
selected. Since this sampling method uses randomization, this means that the research
performed with this sample will probably have high internal and external validity and will
have lower risk of biases such as Sampling Bias and Selection Bias.
Techniques for Analyzing Data
There are two broad classes of data analysis techniques: Qualitative and
Quantitative
 Qualitative Tools
- These are generally easier to use because these do not rely on numerical data
- Open to subjective biases and easier to understand and interpret
- There are two most important methods for summarizing diagnostic data in qualitative
terms: Content Analysis and Force-Field Analysis
 Content Analysis
This is a popular technique in assessing qualitative data, especially
interview data. The purpose of this method is to summarize comments into
meaningful categories. This diagnosing method can be broken down into three
steps:
 First, responses to the question are read to familiarize the various
comments and responses made and to determine if some responses have
occurred over and over again.
 Second, after gaining samples from the various responses, themes will be
generated. Themes combine various answers that effectively state the
same thing.
 Third, the responses to a question will be placed into one of the
categories. The categories with the most responses represent those
themes that are most often mentioned.
 Force-Field Analysis
Another way of analyzing diagnostic data in OD is Force-Field Analysis which is
derived from Kurt Lewin’s three-step model of change. The purpose of this
method is to organize information that pertains to organizational change into two
major categories: Forces for Change and Forces for Maintaining the Status Quo
(Resisting Change).
 Quantitative Tools
- Can provide more accurate readings about the organizational problem
- Rely on numerical data
- Most straightforward ways to summarize quantitative data is the Mean, Standard
Deviations, and Frequency Distributions. Computing the mean and standard
deviation will represent the respondents’ average score and the variability of the
responses.
Chapter 8: Feeding Back Diagnostic Information

Properties/ Characteristics of Effective Feedback
1. Relevant. If the information from the feedback data are meaningful, then the
organization members would use this to solve problems.
2. Understandable. In feeding back diagnostic information, this should be done in
a way that it is readily interpreted. Example: a statistical data can be made
understandable by using graphs and charts.
3. Descriptive. Using examples and detailed illustrations in feeding back data can
help the employees gain a better feel for the data.
4. Verifiable. Feedback data should be valid and accurate if the it aims to make the
organization members take action.
5. Timely. Data should be fed back to employees as quickly as possible after it was
collected and assessed. In doing so, this can help ensure that the information is
still valid and would motivate the members to examine the results.
6. Limited. Feedback data should be limited to what employees can realistically
absorb at one time so that they would not be loaded with too much information.
7. Significant. In connection to being limited, the feedback should also be limited to
those problems that the members of organization could do something about. In
doing this, it could motivate them so that they could direct their effort towards
realistic changes.
8. Comparative. By having a benchmark as reference, it will give the organization
members a better idea of how their group would fit into broader context.
9. Unfinalized. Feedback is primarily the cause of action and it would still have
further diagnosis and problem solving. This could encourage the members of the
organization to use the data as a starting point to briefly discuss the
organizational issues so that it can lead to a change for the better.
Process of Feedback
Objective of Feedback Process: To ensure that the organization members own the
data.
Here, ownership refers to the people’s willingness to take responsibility for the
data and not resist to change.
Features of Successful Feedback Processes
1. Motivation to work with the data. Members of the organization need to feel that
working on based on what the feedback data provides will have beneficial
outcomes.
2. Structure for the meeting. Feedback meetings need some structure or they
may degenerate into chaos or aimless discussion.
3. Appropriate attendance. In the feedback meeting, people who have common
issues and can benefit from working together should be included. This may have
a great result of fully intact work with teams that involve members from different
functional areas or hierarchical levels.
4. Appropriate Power. It is important to clarify the power possessed by the group.
Members need to know the areas that they have control over so they can make
necessary changes. On the other hand, they should also know the areas on
which they cannot control.
5. Process help. An ODP that possesses group process skills can help members
stay focused on the subject and improve the feedback discussion, problem
solving, and ownership.

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Republic of the Philippines

Palompon Institute of Technology

College of Arts and Sciences

Organizational Development relies on the information that were collected during

The Diagnostic Relationship

Three Goals of Data Collection

Chapter 8: Feeding Back Diagnostic Information

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