Applying the management system model to a federal government organization

Abstract

This research develops and applies a set of measurements to assess organizational system balance.

The Management System ;Vlodcl (;\ISM), consisting of "who manages," "what is managed," and "what is used to manage," supplies the basis for defIning balance. Balance requires the system to regain stability at an equal or higher level when brought out-of-balance by change.

This is exploratory research, examining management systems for correlations among related characteristics.

Discovery of correlations helps in the understanding of management system behavior, and can lead to hypotheses on cause-and-effect relationships.

Four C .S. Department of Energy subagencies were used as case studies for the management system analysis. The set of instruments used in this analysis provided a good first-cut at defining and describing balance for management systems. Two of the cases were found marginally balanced. The other two were marginally out-of-balance.

Failure to achieve balance is analyzed by looking at results for conditions of balance between components of the management system. These conditions represent matches of important criteria, such as information portrayal formats, organization-compatible decision styles, and data capture. Balance should be measured, over time, to see if the management system analysis led to improvement. Various instruments were used to assess these balance conditions, including the MyersBriggs Type Indicator and the Driver Decision Style Exercise.