The OD Toolkit

5 Whys

Most of the time we jump to conclusions without understanding the root causes of problems. This often leads to wasted time and resources, and we end up treating a symptom rather than the problem. Using the Five Whys helps get to the root cause of the problem.

Accountability Worksheet

This worksheet helps you hold yourself and your team accountable for expectations, decision making, and feedback.

Action Learning Coaching Tool

The role of the Action Learning Coach / Facilitator is to help participants reflect both on what they are learning and on how they are solving problems (what they are doing).  The Action Learning coach offers guidance, support, learning tools, and feedback to support the team’s learning outcome.

Action Planning

It’s not enough to conduct a SWOT analysis and set SMART goals. Once that’s done, you must plan how to accomplish them through deliberate and strategic action planning.

Active Listening

Listening is perhaps the most effective leadership skill one can have. When you listen to someone, you can get useful information and by combining it with questions, you will not only get a better understanding but also will help the other person discover the knowledge he/she already had about that subject.

Analysis of Beliefs and Practices

This journaling exercise invites you to examine the congruence between your beliefs and practices. It may uncover discrepancies between what you say and what you do. If you discover differences, you have encountered an opportunity for inquiry and learning.

Analysis of Critical Incidents

A critical incident is an event that stands out over others. Its significance or impact may be either negative or positive.

Analyzing Customer Requirements

When working with clients, it’s best to determine their requirements and your ability to deliver at the start of the initiative. This allows you to be very clear from the beginning and ultimately exceed expectations.

Best Practices in Succession Management

Literature indicates that regardless of size, the same fundamental concepts and practices that underlie a best practice succession management system apply to all organizations. This tool provides you with the practices and imperatives for each practice.

Brainstorming

When it comes to generating ideas in a group, there is no more used and proven method than brainstorming. Keep these tips in mind to have a productive brainstorming session at your next meeting.

Brownpaper Technique for Process Maps

There are many techniques for developing process maps. The Brownpaper Technique demonstrates a team building approach that uses the power of the team to develop views on where workload issues might be.

Career Development Planning Worksheet

Use this worksheet to clarify short-term and mid-term goals as well as document competencies to develop.

Career Interest Worksheet

Employees can complete this worksheet to help identify their career interests and background. This will help you in working with them to plan their future development and career growth.

Career Planning Worksheet

This worksheet can be used to guide the career planning conversation.

Communications Planning Worksheet

There are many consideration for effective communications. Using this worksheet to think throug the details will help you be more successful and make sure nothing and no one is left out.

Conducting a SWOT Analysis

An organization’s resources, capabilities and core competencies are critical in creating a future. Taking stock of the organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats by conducting a SWOT analysis is key to building understanding of how to move forward in the most strategically beneficial way.

Conducting Effective Meetings

One fact of business life is that we have meetings. Some of these are productive and others are not. When you need to conduct a meeting, follow these guidelines to make sure it is productive and engaging.

Contracting in Action Learning

Many problems in life result from poor contracting.  Getting clear expectations and guidelines established at the beginning of an Action Learning project will allow the team to have a better chance of success.

Contracting in OD Consulting

The art of contracting is one of the most essential, and often one of the least understood, skills of an effective relationship. It is, too, a skill of great value to OD professionals as well as leaders at all levels of an organization.

Creating a Mission Statement

A mission is the core of what a person, team, or organization is created.  It is summarized in a clear, short, and inspiring statement that focuses attention in one clear direction by stating the purpose of the individual’s, group’s, or organization’s uniqueness.

Creating a Values Statement

Determining the organization values a critical part of forming its identity. The culture, the way business is conducted, how performance is managed, and even who is asked to join the organization is determined by its values.

Creating a Vision Statement

It’s important for organizations to have a clear picture of a desired future. This provides the motivation to strive for something better than where they are. Going through the process of creating a vision statement will help an organization determine this and align everyone with where they want to be. 

Criteria for Identifying High Potentials

This job aid contains the criteria needed to determine your high potentials employees. 

Defining Team Members Role

When a team assembles to set goals, work on problems or make decisions, out of habit their focus is on the task at hand. However, to operate effectively, they must first define their roles.

Defining the Organizations History

Understanding the history of the organization is very important to helping it chart its future. The history provides a record of the past, which can help inform where the organization is going.

Development Opportunities List

This document contains a list of the various ways employees can develop their skills.  

Effective Questioning

Helpful and challenging questions are the key to effectively facilitating teams. The aim of asking questions is to help individuals think, reflect, and maybe respond.

Establishing Norms

When working with others, we need to make sure that we have explicit norms on how we want to operate together. Normally people work together without making the norms explicit, and, as a consequence, everyone has slightly different expectations about “how” they should be working.

Evaluating Meeting Outcomes

When a team assembles to set goals, work on problems or make decisions, out of habit their focus is on the task at hand. However, to operate effectively, they must first define their roles.

Facilitating A Discussion

There are many times that we need to facilitate a discussion. The central task of the facilitator is to manage how discussions occur. This guide helps you understand the process and conduct better discussions.

Feedback – A Facilitated Approach

Feedback is critical for recognition and improving performance. Without it, people don’t know what to continue doing and what to change.

Force Field Analysis

Force Field analysis identifies forces that sustain the status quo and helps to clarify approaches needed to facilitate change.

Gaining Consensus

Using consensus as a decision-making method allows you to leave a meeting knowing the decisions will be supported and gives team members an equal voice. It’s not the easiest approach but is the one that pays off in the long-term.

Identification of Succession Planning Needs

In most organizations, projects only get funding with a solid business case. In making the case for a Success Planning Program, the first area of focus is identifying needs. Working with business leaders, identify the needs reflected from each area below.

Identifying High Potentials

This worksheet provides you with the tools needed to rate each person on your team and determine their readiness to be developed for a future role.

Interviewing Stakeholders

The process of OD consulting starts with a meeting where you interview your stakeholder(s) regarding their challenges. The intent is to learn as much as your can so that you can determine an appropriate method of researching, measuring, and resolving their challenges.

Introduction to Gilberts Behavior Engineering Model

In 1978, Thomas Gilbert published Human Competence: Engineering Worthy Performance, which described the Behavior Engineering Model (BEM) for performance analysis. This model has stood the test of time and continues to be used by performance consultants.

Intro to Process Improvement

The stages of Process Improvement are creative and iterative. The process flows should be mapped out first in draft using pencil (or with Post-it Notess™) and verified before a final Brownpaper is produced. Use the steps below to create your process map and improve processes.

Intro to Strategic Workforce Planning

Though there is no definitive ‘Start here’ activity for an approach to Strategic Workforce Planning, there are five fundamentals activities that most Workforce Plan models have.

Intro to Vision Mission and Values

At the core of any organization is what it does, where it’s going, and common beliefs about what’s right. The best organizations not only define these but also live them and use them to guide decisions.

Introduction to Action Learning

Action Learning is a tool to solve organizational problems and grow leadership competence. It consists of six components that are done by the sponsor, team, and coach. This summary document provides background and a brief description of each component.

Just-in-Time Learning

In action learning, the learning is as important as the action. Action learning places equal emphasis on the accomplishment of the task as well as on the learning and development of individuals, the team, and the organization.

Observing Behavior

One of the most important roles of the coach is to observe the team’s behavior as a group as well as individual behaviors. Watch team member’s body language and watch the group in action.

Present, Past, Future, Activity

When a team or an individual is trying to solve a problem, it is frequently difficult to stay focused. The PPFA tool is helpful once the person has defined a question, and now needs to develop ideas.

Project Planning Basics

All teams should have a plan for how the work will be completed, especially project teams.  A work plan is where you commit yourself to a series of steps or activities that will ensure the team’s performance objectives get translated into ACTION.

Project Team Evaluation Form

Use this form to evaluate your team and each member including yourself during or at the completion of any project.

Ranking High Potentials

Once performance and potential ratings are determined, individuals can be plotted on a grid based on their readiness (performance and potential) and categorized based on their ability to be promoted. This type of grid will graphically depict quantities of readiness in a group, function, or an entire organization.

Resolving Conflict

Conflict is the process that begins when one party perceives that the other has frustrated, or is about to frustrate his/her needs, wants, and values. Conflict situations are situations in which the needs, wants, or values of two parties clash or in some way interfere with each other.

Scanning the Environment

Scanning the current environment involves looking within the group or organization AND beyond the organization to its customers, suppliers, and industry for information on what is important to them. Involving the internal customers (employees) is an important part of the process.

Setting Expectations

It is important to determine team expectations.  Clarifying expectations helps everyone to understand what’s expected from each other and what outcomes need to be accomplished as a team.

Setting Ground Rules

To achieve success in working collaboratively toward a common goal, it is important that groups establish and follow a simple set of ground rules for team communication.

Setting Smart Goals

SMART is an acronym for a method of setting goals that provides criteria accounting for the most important aspects of an effective goal. Each letter helps us remember a component of the goal. These components are Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Results-Oriented, and Time-Bound.

Strategic Planning Process Outline

Strategic Planning consist of six major steps. This outline lists them as well as the activities for each step.

Succession Planning Readiness Assessment

Before implementing a succession planning process, it is good to review each of the factors that are needed for success and create an action plan to make sure the program will achieve the outcomes desired.

Succession Planning Talent Review and Metrics

A key part of your organization’s Succession Planning Strategy includes the tracking and monitoring the development of internal talent. This is critical to the success of your organization, its sustainability, and its ability to achieve business outcomes.

Task Allocation

Picking the right person for the right job is essential in getting things done. Leaders need to select the right people for the right jobs, and assign them tasks that fit with their skills and capabilities. This provides structure.

The Basics of Teams

The primary reason to define “team” is to clarify what we mean because the word conveys different things to different people. Some people think any group working together is a team or any management grouping is a team, and some think primarily of two-person relationships as a team.

Turning Expectations Into Requirements

Customers have both wants and needs; they also have some expectations of which they are not aware; at least not at first. Through customer-supplier discussions, you can bring to light and clarify these expectations to set them out as requirements.