Organizational management is a mechanism for building an efficient and effective organization through the optimal use of its assets and resources.
A well-run transportation agency depends on an organizational structure that supports effective operation and has processes in place to address any gaps limiting its efficiency. Organizational management strategies strive to achieve organizational excellence. Organizational excellence is “the ongoing efforts to establish an internal framework of standards and processes intended to engage and motivate employees to deliver products and services that fulfill customer requirements within business expectations. It is the achievement by an organization of consistent superior performance—for example, outputs that exceed meeting objectives, needs, or expectations.”1
Organizational management includes: the development and adjustment of organizational structures; deployment of Lean and other process improvement methodologies; management of performance and change within the organization; the culture and strategies of the organization; and practices the organization uses to address shifts and trends in the use of its resources.
According to the International City Management Association (ICMA), the 8 keys to organizational excellence are:
• Delight your customers
• Get results from vision and strategic planning
• Create a culture from your values
• Understand and incorporate both leadership and management
• Pay attention to engagement and passion
• Maximize performance
• Measure progress
• Manage change2
Organizational management provides a strategic framework to ensure the agency focuses on developing capability in these areas.
Organizational management strategies are foundational to helping agencies adapt to change. They ensure ongoing alignment between the organization’s objectives and its structure, workforce, business processes, and resource allocation. By actively incorporating organizational management strategies, the agency is able to stay aware of its strengths and weaknesses and can respond as changes occur.
Organizational management refers to activities related to:
• Aligning organizational structure to strategy
• Incorporating lean and other business process improvements to improve efficiency and effectiveness
• Creating a feedback loop to continue to check and adjust performance
• Developing a system to manage change within the organization
• Facilitating a leadership culture that is conducive to carrying out agency strategies
• Formalizing the agency’s organizational approach to adjust resources to align with shifting needs
Table 3.1 below includes examples of the subcategories within organizational management, along with the associated activities and mission critical capabilities that are built using organizational management.
Table 3.1 Organizational Management Strategies
| Strategy subcategory | Sample Activities | Capabilities Addressed |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic Planning | Annual strategic planning workshop | Aligning Skills to Needs Attracting & Retaining Workforce Agility & Resilience Technology Adoption Transparency Operations Focus |
| Organizational Structure | Organizational restructuring initiative | Agility & Resilience Technology Adoption Operations Focus |
| Process Improvements | Lean events | Agility & Resilience Technology Adoption |
| Performance Management | Quarterly agency performance reviews with feedback loops | Agility & Resilience Transparency |
| Change Management | Agency change management function and framework | Agility & Resilience Technology Adoption Operations Focus |
| Organizational Culture | Leadership culture and strategy retreat | Attracting & Retaining Workforce Agility & Resilience Transparency Operations Focus |
CDOT has a long history of process improvement through Lean events and other process improvement mechanisms in alignment with their vision of "everyone, every day, improving every process and every product, to benefit every customer."
CDOT’s Lean Everyday Ideas (LEI) innovations and improvements were named a Top 25 program for the Innovation in American Government Award by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University.
CDOT’s process improvement success can be attributed to the agency’s ability to drive a culture of learning and to encourage the spread and “borrowing” of innovations throughout the agency.
By publicizing innovative ideas, CDOT has enhanced its capability to create a learning culture by engaging its 3,000 employees and 5 regions to “…make someone else’s idea work for them.”3