OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Human Resource Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the human resource frame
2. Apply the human resource frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

To briefly recap the situation I have selected to analyze, includes the dilemma of
moving to a new documentation system. For context, the current organization I work for
is a project management software company that produces a system that allows project
teams to manage their project under the Agile framework. My role within the company is
to support the documentation team create a user guide that aims to help users gain a better
understanding of how to use each feature of the software more effectively. In order to
create this user guide, we have to develop a documentation knowledge base that houses
the user guide as well as our other documentation. Since we already selected the platform
we were going to use to support this documentation migration, a demo with the platform
was required in order to move forward with the onboarding proccess. However, the demo
went very poorly causing us to rethink our decision which presented us with a dilemma;
either to stay with our chosen platform or research other options. Long story short, we
decided to explore other options only for us to go with the documentation platform we
orginally decided on.

2) Describe how the human resources of the organization influenced the situation.

The decision making within this situation was highly influenced by the human
resources frame. In the textbook, Bolman & Deal (2021) suggests that the human
resource frame is when there is an alignment with the people and the organization. To
expand, the organization needs to invest in their employees in order to increase their
satisfaction which will benefit the organization in return. Similarly, within my
organization, we strive to ellict a culture that emphasizes collective and team decision
making. Even though, the manager makes the final decision, he still values our
opinions which contributed to the overall end decision. One of the practices outlined in

1
 the book suggested that to improve the human resource process, an organization needs to
promote egaliartianism which stresses the importance of shared authority (Bolman &
Deal, 2021). In the decision making process of choosing whether to find a new
documentation system or stick with our orginal platform, our manager allowed us to
share our own input which contributed to final decision. Even though within
egalitarianism there is a sense of
shared authority which is not necessarily present within our company, we are still
allowed to be apart of the decision making process. However, when faced with smaller
decisions, the manager normally lets us make the final decision, with their input of
course, which is very similar to shared authority. Just because we, the lower level
employees, may not have the same level of authority as the managers, they still value
our perspectives, opinions, and concerns.
With that being said, if the manager did not take into account our feelings and
reservations on the matter, the outcome may have been different. Looking back on the
situation, we collectively agreed that exploring new documentation platforms would be
the best course of action for the time being. Even though my documentation team had
slight reservations regarding the possibility of our website launch being delayed, it was a
risk we were willing to take. If our team truly believed that researching a new
alternative wouldn’t have yielded a good outcome, our managers would of most likely
made the decision to stick with our previously selected outcome.

3) Recommend how you would use the human resources for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

As I have previously mentioned, our decision making process was very

collaborative as we all reached an agreement to go ahead and research new
documentation platforms. However, there is another avenue that would have also worked
in the lens of the human resources frame. For example, since the documentation has only
two employees, we could have made the decision to do both options, meaning one person
could have started the 14 week trial for the documentation website we had selected while
the other person researches other platforms within that time frame. This would have
allowed us to be able to start our documentation migration while researching other
platforms that may have been better. Even though this may seem like a waste of time and
energy, it would have saved us a few weeks within the project timeline by conducting our
research while completing the migration. Since we are a fairly self-managed team, our
manager could have given us more authority within this scenario in order to make a
decision that would not only have saved time, but would have given us the confidence to
make our own decisions in the future.
The concept of human resources is that within an organization, you need to invest
the same energy within your employees as you want in return. I believe if we had the
power

2
 to make our own decision, the outcome may have been slightly different. However, even
though my documentation team may have made a slighty different decision, that doesn’t
mean it would have been better. The input from our managers, who have more expertise
than we do, was a crucial factor in the final decision. It is important to recognize that the
end result may have ended in an alternate way, but the decision making process which
included our team as well as the managers made the organization stronger. The
collaboration between our team and the authrotity strengthened our relationship and
benefited the organization as a whole which completely embodies the human resources
frame.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

After reflecting upon this experience, I believe there is not much I would have
done differently besides advocate for our ability to make our own decisions. As a
documentation team, we were completely capable of facing this dilemma and making the
decision without input. If we were given the freedom to make this decision on our own,
we would have been able to grow as a team and enhance our decision making skills.
However, I believe the collaborative decision making experience yielded the best
possible outcome as the input from our manager was necessary and highly valued by our
team.
Depsite what I would of done differently, there are many aspects of this scenario
that I would not change. As I have previously mentioned, the collborative nature of this
situation allowed us to enhance our organizational proccess as well as our working
relationships. If we were given the option to make the decision on our own, we may have
grown as a team, but we wouldn’t have been able to strengthen our decision making and
collaboration across all departments. Looking at this situation through the human
resources lens, improving proccesses within an organization does not always entail
sharing authority per se, but instead, it is about strengthening the cohesiveness and
colaboration between the employees and managers of the organization. By deciding to
research other documentation options collectively, we were able to grow as an
organization through active and valued participation which is why I wouldn’t have done
many things differently within this scenario.

3
 References

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership
(7th ed.). Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand.