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On the basis of interviews of employees, GABEK displays an overview on organizational success areas and problem fields that serve to describe possible measures and strategies for future development. The organization benefits from the acceptance of change processes developed among employees now ready to cooperate with the implementation.
Example: Organizational development of six school centers in Bremen and Bremerhaven. (a project of the senator for education and science, Bremen)
Problem
Within the framework of a comprehensive structural reform, the regional schools of vocational education in the country Bremen received more autonomy to become regional centers of vocational education as far-reaching independent organizations. Through amendments of school laws, called “the individual law of particular schools,” schools were permitted to deviate from general norms by adopting their own specific statutes.
Bremen’s nationwide “Further development of vocational schools to regional centers of vocational education” (ReBiz) project has initiated a reform process with the aim of reinforcing the autonomy of vocational schools.
Aims
The GABEK project endeavored to show how teachers and school principals can develop their own organization according to the new individual law of particular schools.
Method
In order to use the rich experiences in organizational development held by school principals and teachers, we conducted 68 open interviews at six school centers regarding their questions, sensitivities, and individual problems and visions, as well as their significance to the organization.
We evaluated the statements made in interviews in the form of network graphs that were used to represent the success areas and problem fields of each school. In a first GABEK feedback workshop, these were used in the selection of core topics in organizational development. This first decision making process took place in each school with its principal and teachers.
Possible measures were displayed for each selected core topic, and possible influences on the core topics were shown via directed graphs. Measures that best fit the specific school situation were selected during the second workshop on implementation, to be presented later to the school committee and decision board. Small teams formed to implement the measures, instructed to exchange information throughout the implementation process, so as to reduce friction losses due to intersecting effects of different measures.
Benefits
The GABEK project opened up new opportunities for schools to enact new forms of participation and delegation of responsibility. Each school chose well-founded core topics and measures, tailor made for the particular needs of the school.
The networking and systematization of all the opinions, on the basis of the interviews with the school staff, fostered a deeper understanding of the situation as a whole regarding the intended school development.
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