As a step in generating consistent guidelines, principles, and tools to assist American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) practitioners in designing organizations, a panel of 19 authorities on organizational principles identified, prioritized, and scaled 28 design factors considered generally important in driving effectiveness outcomes. Ready consensus was achieved by the panel with respect to factor names, narrative definitions, verbal anchors for BARS-like rating scales, and premises indicating the normative (desirable/undesirable) polarities of the scales. The factor definitions are believed to afford a useful checklist for organization planning, management auditing, and organizational effectiveness consulting, as well as an embryonic common language for organizational modeling and research.
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