7ODD Organisation Design and Organisation Development

Module Overview

Organisation design and organisation development is a module within CIPD Level 7 course that focuses on understanding the critical elements within the organisation that managers need to address in improving the ability of the design and development process to meet the organisational goals and objectives. The course focuses on helping the learners understand approaches that are important in ensuring that members of the organisation have the necessary skills, knowledge and behaviours to achieve the set goals and objectives.

Through learning and development, the leaders within the organisation are presented with a number of organisational development strategies that they can use to ensure that they are able to implement organisational change effectively within their institutions. This unit further helps the learners to understand the role of cultural sensitivity and awareness as a tool for implementing organisation design and development. Cultural awareness could impact the ability of the managers to meet the desired levels of performance and organisational leadership, making it a critical aspect in organisational leadership, hence 7ODD is a unit that helps to acquire the necessary information support on such areas.

Unit Objectives

The unit is aimed at ensuring that the learners have knowledge and understanding of the critical areas that include organisation design and organisation development. Some of the main objectives that the unit focuses on achieving include:

• Understand the historical and theoretical arguments on design and development

• Contextualise the theoretical and historical information on organisation design and development by understanding the value it adds to organisational lifecycle

• Explore the different design alternatives for organisational structures and relationships.

• Apply processes and systems that are important in maintaining structures and relationships as well as evaluating the efficiency of the design and development processes.

• Show understanding of change management theories, strategies and activities through exhibiting application of organisational development strategies in supporting organisation design.

• Be able to apply knowledge of organisational culture, norms and behaviours to improve performance within the organisational context.

• Exhibit understanding of the significance of the HR role in creating the desired design and development choices.

Suitability of the Course

7ODD as a unit in CIPD is significantly important to different organisational leaders and professionals in general. The course provides critical information that helps in understanding the need to develop an enabling environment and ensuring that the organisation is effectively managed. It also helps the professional to understand their role in supporting the selected strategies and alternatives within the organisation hence supporting the organisation's design.

This unit further helps to understand the organisational culture, attitudes and behaviours hence creating relevant support for organisational activities. 7ODD is significantly relevant to the HR professionals. These are groups of people tasked with the responsibility of making strategic, tactical and operational decisions on the people practices that are implemented within the organisation hence influencing the environment to which the employees are exposed.

The unit provides the professionals with information that is important in the process of ensuring that they create a conducive and enabling work environment for the employees. The unit is also significantly important and suitable for employee consultants and HR business partners who have the responsibility of supporting organisational HR duties through providing a specialist function. These individuals contribute in creating the career path that is to be followed in the process of development within the organisation making this a critical course in improving their ability to pursue their duties and responsibilities.

Key Learning areas

7ODD covers a wide area of study. However, some of the main themes that are covered in the unit include:

Organisational Design

7ODD helps the learners to have an understanding of the organisation design and its impact on the ability of the organisation to achieve the desired levels of performance in terms of accomplishing the goals and objectives that are set. The learners, therefore, understand the process of shaping organisational structures and activities to optimise the effectiveness of the organisation and seek to achieve flexibility in delivering services to the customers.

Additionally, the process helps to identify issues that affect the ability of the organisation to achieve optimum performance, such as departmental barriers or lack of effective practice and ensures that the issues are addressed through effective development.

Organisational Development

Learners in this unit are put through the understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects involved in improving their ability to improve the organisational design. After identifying the needs of the organisation, it is important to ensure that measures and strategies are put in place to address shortcomings and mainly focus on achieving the practices that maximise performance.

This area of study within 7ODD helps the learners to understand the strategies and activities that they can put in place to facilitate effective development that covers the shortcomings within the organisational design. The areas are therefore important in ensuring that the evaluation process is conducted to identify development needs and provides an understanding of the necessary skills required to address such shortcomings.

Cultural Awareness

7ODD helps the learners understand the need for organisational culture to achieve the desired levels of organisational performance. In understanding the organisation's design and organisation development, cultural awareness is a critical aspect to put into consideration. Learners are guided through the process of integrating information on the culture of employees and how these influences the environment that is put up within the organisation that could affect the performance of the employees in general.

This area of study helps to understand the logic behind employee behaviours and attitudes and ensure that the workplace environment is designed to optimise conducive behaviours that support organisational activities and performance. Culture management within the organisation also involves understanding the process of change and instituting strategies that help to effectively implement change.

Wrap Up

7ODD is a critical unit that learners in HR professionals need to go through to build their understanding of organisational contexts. After completing the course, the learners are assessed through two main approaches, which include a written assessment, where the learners are required to present theoretical and practical understanding of learned concepts and through the use of work-based evidence templates, where the learners are required to exhibit the application of the concepts they have learned.