L/615/2702 Managing Continuous Organisational Improvement - ATHE Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Management

Aim: To enable learners to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills required to create a culture of continuous improvement in an organisation. The learners will have the opportunity to develop the skills required to plan organisational change.

Learning outcome 1: Understand how organisations create a culture of continuous improvement and acceptance of change
Learning outcome 2: Be able to analyse opportunities for improvement to organisational activities
Learning outcome 3: Be able to plan change for organisational improvement

Indicative Content

1. Understand how organisations create a culture of continuous improvement and acceptance of change

• Organisational Features; Business culture, Business Structure, Input from employees, Communication structures (one and two-way communication), Communication with stakeholders, Role of Governance, Legal requirements, Research and Development.

• Leadership and Management Styles; Consultative, democratic, autocratic, laissez faire, pioneer, driver, integrator, management styles, Supporting communication - team meetings, discussion groups, receiving suggestions etc., Acceptance of risk, Cross organisational and collaborative working, team working and learning, seeking feedback, Shared values, goals, beliefs, strategy, Learning incorporated into practice, encouragement of new ideas, information systems to support learning and knowledge management, investment in staff development.

• Continuous Quality Improvement: Top down/bottom up, Kotter and Schlesinger - education and communication, participation and involvement, facilitation and support, negotiation and agreement, manipulation and co-option, implicit and explicit coercion, incremental and transformational change, Use of external standards e.g. ISO 14000 and ISO 9001.

• Quality; Total Quality Management, Kaizen, PDCA, Continuous Quality Improvement, including six Sigma, Benchmarking, Quality Circles, 5Ss, SPC.

2. Be able to analyse opportunities for improvement to organisational activities

• Sources of Information; Environmental audits - political, legal, economic, social, technological, environmental (PESTLE analysis), Organisational analysis - strengths and weaknesses in organisation, Internal management accounts/standard costing, monitoring of organisational activities and suggestion schemes, Benchmarking, External audits, Feedback from stakeholders including appraisals/PDR, Complaints.

• Analysing Information: Reliability of the source of information, how widespread is a specific problem, Systemic errors versus one-off errors, use of external consultants, Criteria to select areas for improvement.

• Impact: Strategic fit, what will need to change within the organisation, for example, systems, people, procedures, resources etc., Timescales of change, Resources required implementing change and investment analysis.

• Big Data; Four dimensions - volume, variety, velocity and veracity, Different types of data - text, machine generated, audio, twitter, video, internet, sensory techniques, Stages of analysis - checking, cleaning, sorting, modelling, mining, characteristics, analytics, Technological challenges, for example memory storage space, physical location, scope of data.

• Evaluation; Stakeholders - who will the improvement/change affect? Achievement of business objectives, how will it affect stakeholders? Cost benefit analysis.

3. Be able to plan change for organisational improvement

• Organisational changes required: Resources, Leadership and management abilities, Job roles and responsibilities, Equipment, Procedures, Activities, Culture.

• Agree changes; Identifying stakeholders - those involved in change and those affected by change, Communication with stakeholders - appropriate format, feedback processes, negotiation, PR, Gaining agreement - negotiation skills, formal agreement requirements.

• Plan; Project planning, Project management techniques including PRINCE2, Documentation, Communication, setting criteria to monitor and measure improvement, Timescales.

• Systems design management; Resources, Documentation, Communication, Policies and procedures.

• Process Review; Importance of monitoring, Using feedback, Performance measurement.