Organizational Capacity Assessment

Organizational capacity assessment refers to the company’s ability to change the organizational dynamics so as to increase effectiveness. This refers to the degree to which the organization can handle organizational change processes, including changes in resources and capabilities within its structure, style, staff, shared values and skills.

Methodology

1. Analyze organizational structure. Clarify the formal and informal organizational routines. Assess organizational capabilities: staff, systems, style, shared values, and structure.
2. Assess the strengths and weaknesses. Map current resources and capabilities against those that will be needed to implement the strategy. Determine the strengths and weaknesses of both the organizational structure and the skills possessed by the organization.
3. Evaluate the critical gaps to be closed. Define the most critical gaps and determine the measures necessary to close them (e.g. make versus buy decisions).

Notes

• Should be performed concurrently with all other analyses of the industry, company, and competitor companies to relate strategic thinking to company capabilities
• The purpose of the analysis is to understand the company’s capacity or degrees of freedom to execute strategies
• 7S analysis provides insights on organizational strengths

Strengths

• Helps the team develop strategies that are implementable and executable from an organizational perspective

Weaknesses

• If resources and capabilities are incorrectly assessed otherwise sound and logical strategy might be rendered useless and performance measurement systems might be adversely affected