Organizational Assessments

Clarity, Alignment, and Improved Performance.

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We conduct impartial, research-informed organizational assessments for universities, schools, academic divisions, and administrative units. We help leaders understand what work is happening, how effectively it’s being carried out, and what structural or operational changes will create the greatest impact.

An organizational assessment offers an objective, external view of how teams are structured, how work flows across functions, and where challenges are limiting execution. Our process includes confidential 1:1 interviews with team members and key stakeholders to surface what’s working, what’s getting in the way, and what needs to change. We then deliver clear, actionable recommendations tailored to your context, constraints, and desired future state.

To ensure progress and impact, we can also provide:

  • Change management and communication plans

  • Team workshops and leadership alignment sessions

  • Custom-designed surveys to gather broad input efficiently

  • Multi-year benchmarking using the Denison Culture Survey.

Outcomes you might expect include improvements in productivity and performance; morale and climate; systems, communications, and processes; role clarity and needed capabilities; leadership; organizational design; and organizational dependencies and redundancies.

  • We reviewed the entire academic affairs function for a state university with six colleges serving more than 18,000 students. Our review included the provost office, dean’s office, and departmental level. We created metrics for estimating volume of work and recommended improvements that improved academic affairs across the university.

  • A School of Design and Architecture at an R1 university had grown organically and the dean was looking for ways to consolidate and centralize administrative activities for enhanced performance and cost effectiveness. We interviewed all of the staff and provided an updated organizational structure designed to enhance staff engagement and also take advantage of university shared services.

  • An online community college poised for its next stage of growth approached us for a robust design for its future state. Our organizational assessment included college-wide interviews, focus groups, and a survey ensuring the entire community provided input into the new design, accompanied by a change management plan.

  • A business school challenged by morale issues and faced with an accreditation challenge came to us looking for support to align faculty and deepen their engagement. Working closely with human resources, we conducted a culture survey and interviewed all faculty and staff. The resulting recommendations served as the basis for a two-day team-building workshop that we conducted on site. One year later, a new culture survey showed an increase across every measure, with an overall average increase of 43%.