ABSTRACT
Organizations invest significant time and money into instituting a change effort and maintaining the effects. Organization development (OD) uses a comprehensive and systematic approach toward a successful change process or intervening approach. Complexities in evaluating OD lie in determining evaluators and the criteria through which the OD process and its change effort will be measured against. The success of the evaluation plan depends on understanding every organization as a unique entity, and considers its different interdependent factors. This chapter focuses on criteria for identifying OD evaluators and in determining the best fit for evaluation criteria. The roles of the evaluator(s) are determined at the initial planning steps of the OD effort to ensure effective implementation and organization-wide buy-in to the evaluation process. The traditional Action Research Model is one of the models used to guide a systematic OD process, and comprises eight steps: entry, start-up, assessment and feedback, action planning, intervention, evaluation, adoption, and separation.
