The Volunteer Management Professional Development Learning Circle series will introduce Organisation Development at the April Circle at Belconnen on Wednesday 22nd.

Organisation development is an educational process by which human resources are continuously identified, allocated, and expanded in ways that make these resources more available to the organisation and, therefore, improve the organisation's problem-solving capabilities.

The most general objective of organisational development - OD - is to develop self-renewing, self-correcting systems of people who learn to organise themselves in a variety of ways according to the nature of their tasks, and who continue to expand the choices available to the organisation as it copes with the changing demands of a changing environment. OD stands for a specific way of looking at the human side of organisational life.

What is OD?

a) A long-range effort to introduce planned change based on a diagnosis which is shared by the members of an organisation.

b) An OD program involves an entire organisation, or a coherent "system" or part thereof.

c) Its goal is to increase organisational effectiveness and enhance organisational choice and self-renewal.

d) The major strategy of OD is to intervene in the ongoing activities of the organisation to facilitate learning and to make choices about alternative ways to proceed.

Throughout 2009 the Circles will aim to provide you with tools to handle various situations from an OD standpoint by introducing topics such as:

Staff Morale and Organisational Climate
Collaborative Problem Solving
Conflict Resolution and Negotiation
Structuring Expectations
Managing Change
Organisation Integration
Strategic and Other Planning