Focus On FLATE Operations – A Closer View: Our Organizational Profile

This series on FLATE Operations began in July and continues this month with a review of an Organizational Profile. FLATE's

Organizational Profile is an implicit element of our Real-time Evaluation Protocol (REP) Implementation Evaluation (September FLATE Focus) element.  Our profile describes FLATE's internal working environment. It also defines the external environment in terms of partners, customers, and stakeholders, as well as the relationships with them. Profile documentation describes organizational strategic challenges and advantages and key factors to achieve success. 

FLATE's Organizational Profile has a table structure to facilitate the groupings of the focus questions and their corresponding responses in two categories: P.1 Organizational Description, P2 Organizational Situation. The first category, P.1, projects a clear indication of its question and answer content. This section describes FLATE’s key organizational characteristic.  However, the second, P.2 Organizational Situations, category's meaning may not be as obvious. This section’s focus is the organization’s strategic situation.

Section P.1 question responses drive FLATE to a self-awareness level that is founded on a declaration of its reason for existence and the assessment of resources it actually has. This includes the recognition of any constraints it has to live with. Section questions are grouped as Organizational Environment and Organizational Relationships. The former group deals with FLATE:

• product and service offerings
• Mission, Vision and Values
• assets
• regulatory requirements
• workforce profile

While the latter group, Organizational Relationships, draws FLATE’s attention to the “outside world” with questions that address:

• organizational structure
• customers and stakeholders
• suppliers and partners

Questions within these topics are detailed and designed to sharpen FLATE self-awareness. For example, the last category, Workforce, in Organization Environment, includes probing questions that help FLATE comprehend its workforce composition and skillset needs. Questions also deal with workforce education requirements and skill expectations for members of declared workgroups. Subsystems, drivers that engage the workforce groups to achieve organization objectives that lead to goal successes that support FLATE’s mission are identified.

As declared above, Section P.2 is all about FLATE’s strategic situation. Questions in this part of the Organizational Profile Table (OPT) deal with FLATE’s competitive position, changes, and data. This track is the convolution of all FLATE personals’ awareness of what we are supposed to do with the expectation that organization performance improvement will help us do the best we can. Section P.2 also deals with FLATE’s key strategic content, challenges and advantages.  Additional questions deal with business and professional ethics as well as societal responsibilities. An important component of P.2 includes the characterization of FLATE Performance Improvement System. These OPT entries include the processes in place for evaluation and subsequent improvement of organization projects and processes.

Readers are invited to explore FLATE’s OPT. The table certainly belongs in the “living document” category. It is reviewed periodically as an organizational activity by all members of the FLATE team.  The intent is to capture FLATE’s essence as we grow and change.