Organizational capacity assessment tool
In November 2013 Ms. ManiqueGunaratne of the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon Network on Disability and Executive Committee Member of the Asian Blind Union participated at an OCAT (Organizational capacity assessment tool) workshop and the Asian blind Union executive committee meeting in New Delhi, India. This was organized by the Asian Blind Union and National Federation of the Blind, India at Hotel Thirty Three. Following areas were covered at the workshop.
The Four Abilities
The four abilities model is a framework for organization development and a tool for self-assessment within an organization. The assessment should be done in a participatory manner, but the process should be facilitated by someone outside the organization. The organization capacity assessment tool (OCAT) may serve as a “health check” of an organization, provide as a baseline, serve as a planning tool and may also be used to assess progress and monitor the development of the organization.
The framework proposes to look at an organization as a complex system, where an organization is divided into four parts or four abilities. These parts represent a specific ability needed in organizations that can be used for measuring the status quo in the organization. The four abilities have been given the following names; Ability to be, ability to organize/manage, ability to relate and the ability to do. Each of these abilities contains various capacities and each capacity represents an important aspect for all organizations. Each capacity is given a score from 1 – 4 depending on which of the descriptions that best represents the current situation or the status quo in the organization.
The development of the OCAT, has also been inspired and mentored by INTRAC and Jan Knight. Further, the framework used (that of ‘4 Abilities’) is inspired by a framework developed by Digni (a Norwegian umbrella NGO).
Picture descriptions:
1 At the hotel.
2 At the workshop.
3 Manique making presentation.
ManiqueGunaratne
Council Member – Cisco Networking Academy Council
