5. Implement a New Organization or Administrative Structure

In this type of project, because it is a major undertaking, you have chosen to limit yourself to implementing the new organization or administrative structure and leave the determination of its effectiveness to a later time.

There is nothing wrong with this. Often the task of implementing a new administrative structure is such a major effort that it would not be possible during the time of your dissertation period for you to also carry out an evaluation of the organization's impact on such things as communication and productivity.

However, though establishing a new organization is an entirely respectable task in its own right, having chosen to do only the implementation in your project, you will not be able to reach any conclusions or make any statements about the new organization's impact on communications, morale, productivity, and the like. That will have to await the completion of an outcome evaluation.

Your evaluation will be of the formative (not the summative) type. Your evaluation task is to determine if the major elements of the new administrative structure are in place and operational. Thus, you will need to assemble credible, objective evidence (not simply your own judgments) on the following types of questions:

1. Has a new table of organization been developed, approved, and published?
2. Have new statements of responsibilities for the new organizational elements been prepared?
3. Have new job descriptions be developed?
4. Have the changes from the old to the new organization been clarified and announced?
5. Have the changed relationships and responsibilities with outside organizations been established and clarified?
6. Have all those whose duties will be affected by the organizational change been informed and instructed?
7. Has a review and evaluation mechanism been established to determine if the new administrative structure, once it is fully established, has improved the organization's performance of its mission and responsibilities?

This kind of evaluation will tell you whether the new administrative structure is operational and potentially capable of having an impact-information that is administratively invaluable. It is essential to complete this type of evaluation before undertaking a summative, impact, or outcome evaluation. It makes no sense to evaluate the effectiveness of a program that does not exist-even though we regrettably see many instances of this.

If you decide that you want to both implement the new organization and assess its impact on such things as communications, morale, productivity, and the like, you must carry out both a formative and summative evaluation. See evaluation designs 2, 3, 6, and 8.

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