The Four Frames of an Organization
Organizational issues are often the most difficult part of managing projects. Taking the time to analyze an organization can help identify, understand, and solve potential problems. All organizations consist of four different frames: structural, human resources, political, and symbolic. Each of these frames describes a particular way of looking at organizations and how they function. For example, it can be used to identify the project stakeholders to help meet their needs and expectations or simply can be used to decide which college to attend.
All organizational frames are important for a project success. The structural frame can help understand an organization structure and roles and
…show more content…
There are often mismatches between the needs of the company and the needs of the team members. For example, company XYZ imposed unrealistic deadline where as the team members needed additional time to satisfy the stakeholders.
The political frame addresses organizational and personal politics. It is important to identify who opposes your projects as well as who supports them. This step will help discover the main interest groups that would be most affected by the project outcome. The important issue in IMS project related to the political frame is the power shifts from functional managers to project managers after the initial stage of the project. This unplanned power shift to an inexperienced project manager who does not have much knowledge about the organization to deal with internal and external politics resulted in failure of the IMS project.
The symbolic frame focuses on symbols and meanings. Understanding the symbolic frame of an organization can help shape a culture that gives purpose and meaning to work. There is a definite relationship between organizational culture and successful project management. For example, the IMS project at company XYZ failed mainly due to low risk tolerance due to time constraint, weak unit integration within the team and inadequate support for any work related conflict.
No one of these four
One key responsibility of working as a manager is to recognize the best way to organize and run an organization. A manager who can work with and put into motion the structure and plans of a company is very important to the life of the organization. Chief Executive Officer of Chick-fil-A Dan T. Cathy is an example of such a manager and business owner. Chick-fil-A began its journey in 1960 in Hapeville, Ga. Since then the second
Lastly on the organizational frames is the symbolic frame. Symbolic frame represents the image of the organization to the outside world. The core value of an organization is communicated clearly through its symbol. This value is the culture which are related to the vision, history, rituals, ceremonies that is attached to an organization. Many organization has symbols that depicts the nature of the service they provide and some symbols are inspired by situations or tales that led to the founding of the organization.
The symbolic frame brings inspiration and makes their employees excited to work and commit to a place that has a unique identity. Symbolic leaders are passionate about
• The Political Framework is very important. As Bolman and Deal note, the political leader understands the reality of the politics in the organization and deals with them (1991). The framework is developed primarily by political scientists who believe that an organization is an arena wherein different interest groups compete for a limited amount of power and resources leading to conflict and coalitions being established (Bolman and Deal 1991, p. 15).
After reading the in-depth information from Bolman’s and Deal’s Structural Frame, I understood that regardless of what type of organizations, an organization or organizations describes itself to be known as, the structural frame is established. Meaning in terms of, organizations setting and establishing goals and/or objectives; management and employees establishing rules and following proper procedures internally or externally from the organization.
The structural frame has a different ground of beliefs and principles dissimilar from the other four frames. Solely it based upon certain assumptions, predicated on the division of labor (also referred to as specialization) and deliberate coordination. There too lies in the belief hiring the right people for the right jobs with specialized defined roles and responsibilities, will they perform to their maximum capacity. Essentially, the structural frame is bounded on the principles of effectiveness and efficiency in addition to productivity. This is exactly why leaders whether in private or non-profit organization should always devise a mental model of the rational message they want to convey to the outside world about their infrastructure, especially when related to their goals and objectives.
In my experience at my workplace, the symbolic frame has appeared to be the least relevant of all of the four frames discussed in this course. There is just not a strong sense of a distinctive culture and there are few strong symbols in the office. This being said even a weak and loosely defined sense of culture is a meaningful observation within the symbolic frame.
The four-frame model of structural, human resource, political and symbolic theories provide different perspectives and solutions, for the case study, the Dean Creates a New Normal. Each frame views the case in different lens, resulting in multiple a solutions for one distinct problem.
To organize and prioritize the current and future projects in the pipeline in a way that fits into the PMB budget of $5B, and ensures projects that increase sales, growth, and stockholder value are of top priority, whereas projects that are not beneficial are either put on hold or discarded.
An organizational analysis is an important tool to become familiar with how medical businesses and organizations are able to meet standards of care, provide services for the community and provide employment to health care providers. There are many different aspects to evaluate in an organizational analysis. This paper will describe these many aspects and apply the categories to the University Medical Center (UMC) as the organization being analyzed.
He will need to communicate to them all as to how the restructuring will be done so that they all understand. They will need to know how this will affect the jobs they are doing.
According to Hanh, this is the traditional, "classical" approach. On a state level, the focus is on the structures, organization, duties and functions of governmental institutions. Policies are sometimes described, but never evaluated (unknown).
I had the honor of standing in for our Acting Chief of Surgery at a recent VISN 22 tele-meeting, with all of the hospitals in the VISN reporting to the VISN Chief. It is a bit like roll call, with each center waiting their turn, then detailing their report for each topic and then being cross-examined for under-performances or violations. There were a few congratulatory comments and questions regarding how certain VA centers were doing so well in some areas as well. I agree there is a definite need for oversight in this government organization which deals with people’s lives on a daily basis. This helps us to focus on being transparent, fixing our inadequacies and exceling in all
The first introduction to the model of the organization frames (pg. 19) my initial thoughts were solidly in line with the Structure frame. This makes sense in the way I think and maneuver within organizations. As we have progressed through the text, awareness of other approaches has widened. The realization that it takes multiple methodologies to be successful as an organization is very clear now. This is something that most people grasp intuitively; however being able to apply definitions to provides the deep appreciation of what they can offer.
Political: Each and every project has both internal politics and external ones. Internal ones like personal interests, jealousies and cohesive behaviour project occur in all projects and must be considered and managed by stakeholders. The latter refers to those which the stakeholders do not have under their control. These include all political events like tax policies, employment laws, trade reforms,trade restrictions, political stability, environmental regulations, tariffs etc. The factors that should be taken into account when checking for the political forces that can affect the industry are: