Measurement Tools

Management Systems has a core capability in measurement that allows us to assess both organizations and individuals in quantitative terms that provide a meaningful benchmark for change and development. Our measurement tools add another dimension to our proprietary frameworks. Our surveys can be customized to help you gain the most insight about your company's issues. Our measurement tools include the following:

• The Growing Pains Survey, designed to help you gauge to what extent your organization is experiencing "growing pains"
• The Organizational Effectiveness Survey, helps to identify your organization's strengths and limitations along the levels of the Pyramid of Organizational Development
• The Corporate Scoreboard, provides a measurement of the extent to which you are implementing your strategic plan 
• MAP© Survey, identify strengths and opportunities for development for individuals.
• The Culture Survey, assesses the gaps between your organization's current and desired culture.
  

What is the Growing Pains Survey?

Dr. Eric Flamholtz, President of Management Systems, developed the Growing Pains Survey to measure the extent to which a company is facing problems transitioning to its next stage of development. The Growing Pains Survey is based on the idea that when an organization's infrastructure is not sufficiently well developed for its revenue base, certain symptoms will emerge that signal the need to make a transition. Growing Pains, then, represent an early warning of problems that an organization will encounter over time.

Feel free to take the Growing Pains Survey by referring to the bottom of the page and clicking on Growing Pains Survey button.

Please click here to download the Growing Pains Workbook.

What is the Organizational Effectiveness Survey?

The Organizational Effectiveness Survey measures the extent to which an organization has developed the systems and structures needed to support its growth and/or stage of development. It is often used in the Organizational Audit/Assessment and the Strategic Planning Process to identify an organization's strengths and limitations along the following dimensions:

Markets: The extent to which the firm has identified its market (i.e., customers it wants to serve) and whether the firm has developed a market niche (i.e., a place in the market where the firm has a sustainable competitive advantage).

Products/Services: The extent to which the organization produces products and/or services to meet the needs of its chosen customer base (i.e., market).

Resources: The extent to which the organization has developed effective procedures for acquiring and managing the resources needed to support its growth.

Operational Systems: The extent to which the organization has developed the systems needed to support its daily operations (e.g., accounting, sales, production, personnel, etc.).

Management Systems: The extent to which the organization has developed the systems (planning, performance management, organizational structure, and management development) needed to support its long-term growth.

Corporate Culture: The extent to which the organization has systems in place to explicitly manage its culture.

Financial Results: The extent to which the organization has the capacity and systems in place to effectively manage the financial aspects of the business.

We administer our proprietary survey to your organization to identify your firm's strengths and highlight opportunities for improvement along these seven areas. Respondents are asked to indicate to what extent each item reflects their organization in its current state. Here are a few sample questions from the survey:

A computerized analysis is performed on survey data in order to generate average "Extent Developed" and % Favorable scores. These scores indicate the extent to which a firm has developed the systems, processes, and structures within that dimension of organizational effectiveness.

The following chart is an example of the type of output that might be generated from the survey. It compares a client's Organizational Effectiveness results with that of a typical company in Stage III of the Stages of Growth. In this case, results indicate that while the company is strong financially, the red bars show areas for development in Resources, Management Systems and Culture.

What is the Corporate Scoreboard??

The Corporate Scoreboard is a proprietary tool designed to measure a company's success in implementing its strategic plan. Our experience suggests that firms that regularly measure the success of plan implementation, significantly increase their chances of achieving their strategic mission.

While, ultimately, the firm's strategic planning success is measured by whether or not it achieves its strategic mission, firms should also gauge the success of the planning process at various stages during the planning process in order to ensure that appropriate progress is made on the completion of goals.

Benefits of the Corporate Scoreboard

The ManagementSystems Corporate Scoreboard is an integral part of the strategic planning process. Benefits of the Scoreboard include:

• Uses the Pyramid of Organizational Development
• Helps to proactively manage your strategic planning process
• Promotes increased accountability
• Supports the performance management process
• Allows management to quantify qualitative accomplishments

Managers are provided with a menu of Scoreboard reports that provide quantitative assessments of the firm's success at implementing the strategic plan.  These reports enable managers to analyze implementation success or problems at various levels of the organization. Analysis of Scoreboard reports also allow managers to proactively adjust the strategic plan to ensure its ultimate success.

What is the Culture Survey?

Our culture surveys are a customized part of the Culture Management Process.

The survey is designed to collect data and capture information about the unique nature of the company's current culture and the extent to which it is meeting the firm's needs with respect to goal achievement and employee satisfaction. The survey also measures the gap between the current culture and the desired culture in order to determine where efforts at culture management should be focused.

Questions are designed to assess the following six major dimensions and can be customized as needed:

• Treatment of Customers
• Teamwork and Communications
• Treatment of Employees
• Performance Standards and Accountability
• Organizational Norms/Processes
• Culture Management

Sample questions and graphic output are shown below:

Respondents are asked, "To what extent do the statements below reflect our current culture? To what extent do these statements reflect how our culture should be?"

The graph below identifies the "gap" between current and desired culture. After understanding the findings from the survey, the culture management team develops a culture management plan to bridge the gap.

What is the Management Assessment Program (MAP©)?

The Management Assessment Program consists of a set of four proprietary surveys that assess the extent to which individuals have mastered certain management competencies. The surveys are often used in conjunction with our Management Development Program.

Specifically, the surveys evaluate:

Management Effectiveness: the extent to which an individual has made the appropriate transition to his or her current management role.

Leadership Effectiveness: the leadership style used by the manager and the extent to which he or she is performing key leadership tasks (e.g., goal setting, providing feedback to employees, etc.).

Time Management: the extent to which the individual is effectively utilizing key time management tools and techniques in order to maximize his or her productivity.

Delegation: the extent to which the individual is practicing effective delegation techniques.

Surveys can be completed by the individual only. However, they also can be administered to selected direct reports, peers, and/or managers to provide a more comprehensive assessment, which compares the individual's self-perceptions with the perceptions of others.