What an organisation is for
What an organisation is, what it is for, the chain from purpose to objectives to means, the SMART objective and the three measures of performance: effectiveness, efficiency, relevance.
- 28 cards
- 5 topics
- Free
The outline, topic by topic
Each topic is weighted the way the exam weighs it.
- Concepts
- Questions
- Sort and link
- Scenarios
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A few cards from the deck
Organisation: what is it?
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A group of people and resources arranged with rules and roles to reach a common goal.
Three ingredients: a shared goal, pooled resources, a structure that shares out the roles. A company, an association and a town hall are all organisations.
A team organises a trade fair: objective 1,000 registrations, budget €20,000. It gets 1,000 registrations having spent €14,000. How should the result be described?
- Both effective and efficient
- Effective only, because the budget does not count in judging a result
- Efficient only, because the objective was not exceeded but the budget was kept
- Neither, because the whole planned budget should have been spent
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Both effective and efficient
Effectiveness compares the result with the objective (1,000 for 1,000); efficiency compares the result with the resources (€14,000 instead of €20,000). Not spending the whole budget is never a flaw.
The chain reads from top to bottom: the … is broken down into …, which are reached through ….
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The chain reads from top to bottom: the purpose is broken down into objectives, which are reached through resources.
From most lasting to most concrete: the purpose almost never changes, objectives are renewed every year, resources are adjusted along the way.
Purpose: what is it?
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The lasting reason an organisation exists; it cannot be put in figures and is never used up.
It can be profit-making (rewarding shareholders), non-profit or in the public interest. Objectives turn it into dated targets, resources serve it.
A café chain aims at 500,000 more customers. It gets there by doubling its advertising budget, but the new customers do not come back. What is it mostly lacking?
- Effectiveness: the 500,000-customer objective is not reached
- Relevance: it aimed at the wrong problem
- A measure: the objective was not put in figures
- A profit-making purpose: it should be replaced by a social purpose
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Relevance: it aimed at the wrong problem
The objective is in figures and reached, so measurable and effective. But aiming at the number of customers rather than their return is a poor choice of objective: relevance is the issue.