Organizational planning: some comments

Abstract

This paper analyses organisational tasks and discusses three approaches to organisations study, and develops an approach to planning organisation of work. The task of organising requires more than dividing the work into manageable units or laying down authority charts. It requires integration of a set of dynamic forces as well as reconciling the various demands of technology and social factors. The demands vary within the organisation from one operating level to another. There are three distinguishable functional levels in an organisation: first, direction, service and control second, operating management and third, primary work group level The nature of demands at all three levels are different and these differences may justify different organisational fit at each level General principles of organisation applicable to the enterprise as a whole seem neither applicable nor justified. The effectiveness of the organisation depends upon the nature of the task to be done. It must be based on an analysis of the physical activity at the base of the organisational triangle. The tasks at the higher levels of the hierarchy must bear direct relation to the basic tasks at the level of the physical activity. It is suggested that organisational planning must begin with analysis of the tasks at the physical level and only by determining the suitable organisation at this level can other positions be determined. This is so because there must be a direct link between the task at the base of the triangle and those that lie higher up in the hierarchy. Another characteristic of the organisation has to do with the need for having an adaptive organisation which can cope with changes in the environment and those that are induced from within the system of the enterprise