Organization Development Methods in the Management of the Information Systems Function.

Author List: Loftin, R. D.; Moosbruker, J. M.;
MIS Quarterly, 1982, Volume 6, Issue 3, Page 15-28.
The work presented in this article relates directly to perhaps the most serious problem facing the Information Systems manager in a large, complex organization today, namely how to plan and manage in a rapidly changing, high-demand, resource-limited environment. The article describes an organizational change effort undertaken within a major data processing organization to seek improvements in four broad areas: data center production performance, responsiveness of the systems development activity, management control and decision making, and long range and operational planning processes. Much of the change effort involved activities and tasks which were defined and implemented using Organization Development (OD) methods. OD involves the application of behavioral science knowledge in a collaborative and participative process in response to some perceived need within the organization. It is a planned and systematic way to alter patterns of organizational behavior. The general change strategy utilized is described along with specific examples of particular OD techniques, those which worked well and those which did not. Finally the article presents some observations as to why OD methods are important to Information System development.
Keywords: change management; data center performance; Organization development
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List of Topics

#231 0.332 information management data processing systems corporate article communications organization control distributed department capacity departments major user hardware cost applications expansion
#26 0.100 business large organizations using work changing rapidly make today's available designed need increasingly recent manage years activity important allow achieve
#152 0.099 software development process performance agile processes developers response tailoring activities specific requirements teams quality improvement outcomes productivity improve fit maturity
#240 0.082 systems information management development presented function article discussed model personnel general organization described presents finally computer-based role examined functional components
#167 0.065 workflow tools set paper management specification command support formal implemented scenarios associated sequence large derived taxonomies called given systematic specifications
#265 0.064 collaborative groups feedback group work collective individuals higher effects efficacy perceived tasks members environment writing experiment did task intelligence compared