Collaborative organization analysis

• US 20060026057A1
• Filed: 07/19/2005
• Published: 02/02/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ikeda, Kazuaki, Nakamura, Fusashi, Mizuta, Hideyuki
• Granted Patent: US 7,933,795 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

An apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency, a method for evaluation service of organization efficiency, an apparatus for generating communication frequencies, a method for generating communication frequencies, and programs and recording media of the same, quantitatively evaluate efficiency of an organization structure. The present invention provides an apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency having communication frequencies among departments obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among departments, the frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among departments within an organization; a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data, the data defining a group including more than one department within an organization; communication frequencies among groups calculation unit for calculating communication frequencies among groups for groups interchanging information, on the basis of communication frequencies among departments; and an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure defined by group definition data, on the basis of the communication frequencies among groups.

Claims

1. An apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency comprising:

a communication frequency among departments obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among departments, said frequencies being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of departments within an organization;

a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data, said data defining a group including more than one of said departments within said organization;

a communication frequency among groups calculation unit for calculating communication frequencies among groups for said plurality of groups interchanging information, on the basis of said communication frequencies among departments; and

an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure defined by said group definition data, on the basis of said communication frequencies among groups.

2. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 1,

wherein said group definition data obtaining unit obtains data for defining groups, each of the groups containing more than one of said departments, and cooperative relationship among the groups as said group definition data, and

wherein said organization efficiency calculation unit calculates efficiency of an organization structure further on the basis of cooperative relationship among groups defined by said group definition data.

3. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 1, further comprising:

a department information obtaining unit for obtaining department information indicative of a department to which each member of an organization belongs;

a communication frequency among members obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among members, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of members belonging to an organization; and

a communication frequency among departments generating unit for generating said communication frequencies among departments, on the basis of said communication frequencies among members and said department information, and

wherein said communication frequencies among departments obtaining unit obtains said communication frequencies among departments generated by said communication frequencies among departments generating unit.

4. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 3, wherein said communication frequencies among members obtaining unit obtains said communication frequencies among members based at least on frequencies of sending/receiving email messages interchanged among said staff members and amount of data sent/received by email messages.

5. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 3, wherein said communication frequencies among members obtaining unit obtains said communication frequencies among members based on frequencies of meetings that staff members attended.

6. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 3, wherein said communication frequencies among members obtaining unit obtains said communication frequencies among members based on frequencies of phone calls or duration of phone calls among said staff members.

7. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 3, wherein said communication frequencies among members obtaining unit obtains frequencies of members'"'"' reading of the same document as communication frequencies among members for each of the members.

8. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 1, further comprising:

an organization structure data obtaining unit for obtaining organization structure data indicative of a higher ranking department to which each of lower ranking departments being subordinate for a plurality of departments within an organization, and

a target organization structure data generating unit for generating target organization structure data indicative of a targeted organization structure on the basis of said group definition data and said organization structure data, and

wherein said organization efficiency calculation unit calculates efficiency of an organization structure defined by said group definition data further on the basis of said target organization structure data.

9. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 8, wherein said target organization structure data generating unit generates a structure, in which each department belonging to a group defined by said group definition data is considered as a higher ranking department and a department subordinate to the higher ranking department in said organization structure data is considered as a lower ranking department, as said target organization structure data.

10. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 1, wherein said organization efficiency calculation unit calculates a target value of communication frequencies among groups for a group defined by said group definition data and calculates an indicator based on an achievement ratio of said communication frequencies among groups to the target value as efficiency of an organization structure.

11. The apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency according to claim 1, wherein said organization efficiency calculation unit calculates an indicator on the basis of a difference between first communication frequencies among groups and second communication frequencies among groups, which is calculated at a predetermined period after the calculation of said first communication frequencies among groups as efficiency of an organization structure.

12. An apparatus for generating communication frequencies comprising:

a department information obtaining unit for obtaining department information indicative of a department to which each member of an organization belongs;

a communication frequency among members obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among members, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of members belonging to an organization; and

a communication frequency among departments generating unit for generating communication frequencies among departments, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among said plurality of departments, on the basis of said communication frequencies among members and said department information.

13. The apparatus for generating communication frequencies according to claim 12 further comprising:

a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data, said data defining a group including more than one of said departments;

a communication frequency among groups calculation unit for calculating communication frequencies among groups for said plurality of groups interchanging information, on the basis of said communication frequencies among departments; and

an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure defined by said group definition data, on the basis of said communication frequencies among groups.

14. An apparatus for evaluating organization efficiency comprising:

an organization structure data obtaining unit for obtaining organization structure data indicative of a higher ranking department to which each of lower ranking departments being subordinate for a plurality of departments within an organization;

a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data that defines a group including more than one of said departments and new cooperative relationship to be created among groups;

a target organization structure data generating unit for generating a structure, in which each department belonging to a group defined by said group definition data is considered as a higher ranking department and a department subordinate to the higher ranking department in said organization structure data is considered as a lower ranking department, as a target structure data indicative of a targeted organization structure; and

an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure indicated by said target structure data, on the basis of said group definition data and said organization structure data.

15. A method for evaluation service of organization efficiency comprising the steps of:

obtaining communication frequencies among departments, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of departments within an organization;

obtaining group definition data, said data defining a group including more than one of said departments within said organization;

calculating communication frequencies among groups for said plurality of groups interchanging information, on the basis of said communication frequencies among departments; and

calculating efficiency of an organization structure defined by said group definition data, on the basis of said communication frequencies among groups.

16. A method for generating communication frequencies comprising the steps of:

obtaining department information indicative of a department to which each member of organization belongs;

obtaining communication frequencies among members, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of members belonging to an organization; and

generating communication frequencies among departments, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among said plurality of departments, on the basis of said communication frequencies among members and said department information.

17. A method for evaluating organization efficiency comprising the steps of:

obtaining organization structure data indicative of a higher ranking department to which each of lower ranking departments being subordinate for a plurality of departments within an organization;

obtaining group definition data that defines a group including more than one of said departments and new cooperative relationship to be created among groups;

generating a structure, in which each department belonging to a group defined by said group definition data is considered as a higher ranking department and a department subordinate to the higher ranking department in said organization structure data is considered as a lower ranking department, as a target structure data indicative of a targeted organization structure; and

calculating efficiency of an organization structure indicated by said target structure data, on the basis of said group definition data and said organization structure data.

18. A program causing a computer to operate as:

a communication frequency among departments obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among departments, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of departments within an organization;

a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data, said data defining a group including more than one of said departments within said organization;

a communication frequency among groups calculation unit for calculating communication frequencies among groups for said plurality of groups interchanging information, on the basis of said communication frequencies among departments; and

an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure defined by said group definition data, on the basis of said communication frequencies among groups.

21. A storage medium storing a program described in claim 18.

19. A program causing a computer to operate as:

a department information obtaining unit for obtaining department information indicative of a department to which each member of organization belongs;

a communication frequency among members obtaining unit for obtaining communication frequencies among members, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among a plurality of members belonging to an organization; and

a communication frequency among departments generating unit for generating communication frequencies among departments, said frequency being frequencies of information interchanges among said plurality of departments, on the basis of said communication frequencies among members and said department information.

20. A program causing a computer to operate as:

an organization structure data obtaining unit for obtaining organization structure data indicative of a higher ranking department to which each of lower ranking departments being subordinate for a plurality of departments within an organization;

a group definition data obtaining unit for obtaining group definition data that defines a group including more than one of said department and new cooperative relationship to be created among groups;

a target organization structure data generating unit for generating a structure, in which each department belonging to a group defined by said group definition data is considered as a higher ranking department and a department subordinate to the higher ranking department in said organization structure data is considered as a lower ranking department, as target structure data indicative of a targeted organization structure; and

an organization efficiency calculation unit for calculating efficiency of an organization structure indicated by said target structure data, on the basis of said group definition data and said organization structure data.