Schmuck, R. A. (1976). Process Consultation and Organization Development. Professional Psychology, 7(4), 626-631.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0078613
Process consultation aims at improving the interpersonal and group procedures used by administrators, teachers, students, and parents to reach their educational objectives. It focuses primarily on the how of interpersonal and group interactions rather than on the what of their content. Process consultants consequently deal with such phenomena as the patterns of communication, successful and unsuccessful influence attempts, underlying tensions, and decision-making procedures. Success of process consultation would be measured in terms of how effectively the recipients--whether they are educators, students, or parents--work together in reaching their respective objectives. The consultant's success is determined by how effective the recipients are in defining their problems and goals (which may, for example, have to do with the content of a program of remedial reading), how resourceful the recipients are in devising ways to reach their goals (which may include conferring with a content consultant in reading methods), and how stable, adaptive, and effective the group's products are over time (as indicated, for example, by measuring the long-term effectiveness of a reading program). Thus, the process consultant provides help with methods of communication and problem solving and with procedures for planning, decision making, and implementing. The recipients of the consultative help provide the substantive issues, problems, goals, and plans for action. Consultation in organization development (OD) is a special kind of process consultation. The overall, abstract objective of OD is to build self-renewing schools, schools that are able to adapt to current changes within the student body, community, and world while continuing to maintain an effective educational program. Along with these definitions, this article describes some assumptions, values, strategies, and goals of OD consultation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)