Organizational Diagnosis Models in Schools: 7S, SWOT, PESTLE

Organizational diagnosis models let a school head study a public school as a whole before writing its School Improvement Plan (SIP). Below are the McKinsey 7S framework, Galbraith’s Star Model, Weisbord’s Six-Box Model and the Burke-Litwin model, with worked examples from Philippine public schools, and SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and PESTLE analysis (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors). For teams, there is the GRPI model: goals, roles, processes and interpersonal relationships. Each model comes with guide questions for the planning team.

The Department of Education (DepEd) asks schools to assess themselves under DepEd Order (DO) No. 007, s. 2024 on School-Based Management (SBM). Schools plan under DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015. For new school heads and for teachers preparing for the National Assessment for School Heads (NASH), formerly the National Qualifying Examination for School Heads (NQESH), this work falls under strands 1.2, 1.4, 2.6 and 5.5 of the Philippine Professional Standards for School Heads (PPSSH), adopted by DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020.

Key points

• Diagnose the whole school before you choose projects. A diagnosis checks how the school’s purposes, structure, processes, people, rewards and surroundings fit together. It comes before the gap analysis and the Priority Improvement Areas (PIAs) of the SIP, and before the root cause analysis of each PIA.
• A diagnosis studies the organization, not individual teachers. DO 007, s. 2024 treats SBM as an organization effectiveness framework and the PPSSH as a people effectiveness framework. A diagnosis that names and blames people becomes a performance review, and people stop reporting honestly.
• Each model answers a different question. PESTLE scans the world outside the school, and SWOT sorts internal and external factors. The 7S framework and the Six-Box Model check how the parts of the school fit. The Star Model checks design choices, GRPI checks one team, and Burke-Litwin separates culture from climate.
• Use two models, not seven. A practical pair is PESTLE for the outside and the 7S framework or the Six-Box Model for the inside. A SWOT then summarizes both, checked against the SBM self-assessment results.
• Every finding needs evidence and must reach the plan. DO 007, s. 2024 tells schools to carry self-assessment results into the strategic plan “as identified improvement areas”. A diagnosis that does not change the SIP has no effect on learners.

What organizational diagnosis means in a school

Organizational diagnosis is the systematic study of how an organization works now, so that the right improvements can be chosen. For a school head, it means looking at the school as one system. A diagnosis asks what the school is trying to achieve, how work is divided, and how decisions and information flow. It also asks what people are rewarded for, how they work together, and what is happening in the community around the school.

The models in this guide are organized lists of places to look. Each one names a small set of parts and holds that problems appear when those parts do not fit each other. A model helps a planning team collect data in an orderly way, sort what it finds, and discuss it with shared terms.

Philippine law places this work at the school level. Republic Act (RA) No. 9155 is the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001. Its Section 2 states: “Schools and learning centers shall be empowered to make decisions on what is best for the learners they serve”. Section 7 gives the school head authority, accountability and responsibility for “Developing the school education program and school improvement plan”. The guide to RA 9155 school head duties explains the full list.

DO 007, s. 2024 says SBM gives schools, their personnel and community stakeholders the chance to plan and decide together on their “transformation into effective organizations”. It defines self-reflection as “understanding a school’s current situation by describing the roots of issues, concerns, and areas for improvement and identifying responsive courses of action”. A diagnosis model is a structured way to do that self-reflection. The guide to DepEd School-Based Management explains the full SBM cycle.

Diagnosing the organization is not evaluating people

A diagnosis asks whether the school’s systems help people do good work. A performance review asks whether one person met his or her objectives. The two use different data, involve different people and lead to different actions.

DO 007, s. 2024 draws the same line. It names SBM “an organization effectiveness framework” and the PPSSH “a people effectiveness framework”. It also quotes the PPSSH: school heads are responsible for “taking care of people in schools (people effectiveness) while maximizing organizational performance and health (school effectiveness)”.

Marvin Weisbord made a related point in 1976. He observed that problems in how work gets done are often blamed on one or two people’s personalities, when the cause lies in a pattern across the organization. Suppose two sections have the lowest reading results in Grade 5. The school head first asks what the schedule, materials, assessment routine and support give those two teachers. Coaching an individual teacher is a separate task, done privately through instructional supervision.

Why diagnose before planning

A planning team that skips diagnosis tends to choose projects first and look for problems later. The usual results are plans built around facilities, projects copied from another school, and targets that the school’s structure cannot support.

DO 44, s. 2015 lists among its guiding principles that the SIP “requires innovative and systems thinking”. Its Assess phase starts with a gap analysis, in which the School-Community Planning Team (SPT) compares the school’s data with the Division’s targets. The data show where the school stands. A diagnosis adds what the numbers alone do not show: how the parts of the school work together, and which forces outside the school help or hurt it.

Organizational diagnosis models compared

The table compares the models in this guide. The times are rough estimates for a school planning team, not DepEd requirements.

The McKinsey 7S framework with a school example

Robert Waterman, Tom Peters and Julien Phillips, then consultants at McKinsey and Company, introduced the 7S framework in the article “Structure Is Not Organization” in Business Horizons in June 1980. Tony Athos and Richard Pascale helped shape it, and Peters and Waterman used it in their 1982 book In Search of Excellence. The article’s title states its main point: changing the organization chart does not by itself change how an organization works.

The seven elements fall into two groups. Strategy, structure and systems are the “hard” elements, which appear in plans, charts and procedures. Shared values, style, staff and skills are the “soft” elements, which are harder to see and slower to change. Shared values sit at the center of the model’s diagram; the authors first called them “superordinate goals”.

Worked example: a reading program that did not take hold

A junior high school of about 1,500 learners started a reading program for Grade 7 two years ago. The school’s own reading assessments show little change. The planning team runs a 7S review in two meetings, using the class programs, LAC records and a short anonymous teacher survey.

The strategy was sound, but five of the other six elements did not fit it, and the sixth fit only weakly. The team proposes four improvement areas for the SIP:

1. reading time in the class program;
2. LAC sessions on teaching reading in each subject;
3. a quarterly review of reading results by grade-level teams;
4. regular classroom visits by the school head during reading time.

Each proposal answers a finding, so the team can check later whether the fit improved.

Limits. The 7S framework looks only inside the organization. It does not show the community, the division or national policy, and it does not measure results. Pair it with PESTLE and with the school’s outcome data.

SWOT analysis for schools: guidelines and an example

SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A 2023 study in Long Range Planning by Richard Puyt, Finn Birger Lie and Celeste Wilderom traced it to corporate long-range planning work led by Robert F. Stewart. In that early version, managers graded issues as Satisfactory, Opportunities, Faults or Threats (SOFT), and the label was later changed to SWOT.

Strengths and weaknesses are inside the school: the school can change them by its own decisions. Opportunities and threats are outside the school: the school cannot control them, but it must respond. The test for each item is simple. If the school can change it by its own decision, it is internal.

Guidelines for a sound school SWOT

1. Gather the data first. Use school records, assessment results, the SBM self-assessment results and the PESTLE findings. A SWOT written before the data are ready records opinions.
2. Write each item with its evidence. “Reading” is a topic. “41 of 180 Grade 4 learners read below grade level in the latest school assessment” is a finding.
3. Test the box. A new municipal scholarship is an opportunity, not a strength, because the school does not control it. A flooded access road is a threat, not a weakness, because the road belongs to the barangay or the local government unit (LGU).
4. Split mixed items. “Low parent attendance at meetings” mixes an internal part (how and when the school calls meetings) with an external part (parents’ work hours). Write the two parts separately.
5. Do not write solutions as weaknesses. “No reading corner” names one possible solution. Write the problem instead: “Grade 1 to 3 learners have few books at their reading level.”
6. Keep each box short. Five to seven ranked items per box are easier to act on than twenty.
7. Hear more than one group. Teachers, learners and parents see different strengths and weaknesses. Compare their lists before you merge them.
8. Turn the SWOT into strategies. Heinz Weihrich’s TOWS matrix (1982) pairs the boxes. SO strategies use strengths to take opportunities, WO strategies use opportunities to reduce weaknesses, ST strategies use strengths to reduce threats, and WT strategies reduce weaknesses while avoiding threats.

Worked example: a rural elementary school

An elementary school of about 650 learners in a rural barangay prepares a SWOT for its new SIP cycle. Every item carries its evidence.

The team then writes one strategy for each pair. SO: ask the Local School Board to place the SEF-funded tutors under the three trained reading teachers. WO: request eye screening first for Grade 4 to 6 learners who read below grade level. ST: have the trained teachers prepare take-home reading packets for days when the road floods. WT: track learners who transfer out in the lean months and send their reading records to the receiving schools.

Guide questions for a SWOT session

• What evidence supports each item, and who collected it?
• Can the school change this item by its own decision? If yes, it is internal.
• Which three items matter most for learners’ results?
• Which weakness, if addressed, would also help other areas?
• Which strength is the school not yet using?

Limits. A SWOT lists factors but does not explain them. A weakness that becomes a PIA still needs root cause analysis by a project team.

PESTLE analysis for a Philippine public school

PEST analysis is usually traced to Francis J. Aguilar of Harvard Business School, whose 1967 book Scanning the Business Environment studied how managers gather information about the world outside their firms. Later writers added legal and environmental factors, which gives PESTLE: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental.

For a school, PESTLE is a checklist for the community and the policy environment. It bases the opportunities and threats of the SWOT on facts. Every factor should end with a short line on what it means for learners and what the school will do.

For the legal factor, recent DepEd orders give examples. DepEd Order No. 016, s. 2026 sets new guidelines on lesson planning and learning design. DepEd Order No. 015, s. 2026 revises classroom assessment, grading, and awards. DepEd Order No. 009, s. 2026 introduces the three-term school calendar. DepEd Order No. 014, s. 2026 sets guidelines on learning continuity in emergencies, which links the legal and environmental factors.

Worked example: a coastal school in a typhoon belt

A coastal elementary school of about 480 learners in Eastern Visayas runs a PESTLE before its SWOT. The team gathers data for two weeks and meets once.

These findings now fill the opportunities and threats of the school’s SWOT, each with its evidence.

Limits. PESTLE lists can grow long, and the school controls none of the factors. Keep only the factors that affect learners in the next three years, and write the school’s response beside each.

Force field analysis: when a change has been chosen

Kurt Lewin’s force field analysis comes from his Field Theory in Social Science (1951). It lists the driving forces that push toward a change and the restraining forces that hold the school where it is. It is a diagnosis of one change, not of the whole school. Use it after the SIP has chosen a change, to plan how to carry it out.

Lewin noted that reducing restraining forces moves the situation with less tension than adding pressure. The guide to change management in schools shows how to run a force field analysis with teachers, with a full example.

Galbraith’s Star Model for school organization design

Jay R. Galbraith developed the Star Model as a framework for organization design. It names five sets of design choices that leaders control: strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people. Galbraith stressed that organization design is more than structure, that all five choices must be aligned, and that different strategies need different organizations.

In a public school, some of these levers are set outside the school. The table separates what the school head can change from what national and division rules decide.

Worked example: a reorganization that changed nothing

To improve mathematics, a school head replaced grade-level groups with learning-area teams at the start of the school year. After one term, the teams meet only when called, team leaders use meetings to read announcements, and results have not moved. A Star review shows why.

• Strategy: clear. Mathematics is a PIA.
• Structure: changed. The new teams exist.
• Processes: unchanged. No fixed meeting time exists, and no routine for reviewing quiz results.
• Rewards: unchanged. The school still recognizes only contest winners, not teams whose learners improve.
• People: unchanged. Team leaders were never prepared to lead planning sessions.

The structure changed, but the other three points of the star did not change with it. The school head sets a fixed weekly meeting time for each team, recognizes teams for learner progress, and runs a LAC session on leading a planning meeting.

Guide questions for a Star review

• What must the school do well to reach its priority this cycle?
• Which decisions sit with the school head that a team could make closer to the classroom?
• How does information about learners’ results reach the teachers who can act on it?
• What do teachers see being recognized in this school?
• Which skills does the strategy need, and how will the school build them?

Limits. The Star Model was built for companies, where leaders set pay and hire freely. In a public school, use it for the levers within the school head’s reach.

Weisbord’s Six-Box Model for schools

Marvin Weisbord published the Six-Box Model in “Organizational Diagnosis: Six Places to Look for Trouble with or without a Theory,” in Group & Organization Studies in 1976. He called it a “practice theory,” a working tool built from experience rather than a tested research model. The six boxes are purposes, structure, relationships, rewards, leadership and helpful mechanisms, drawn inside a circle that marks the organization’s boundary against its environment.

Weisbord’s main idea is that each box holds two possible sources of trouble. The formal system is what the organization says it does, in its documents, reports and speeches. The informal system is what people actually do. A large gap between the two often explains why a plan that looks sound on paper does not work.

Weisbord listed four ways to collect data: observation, reading records, interviews and surveys. He suggested starting with one major output and asking two groups about it: those who receive it and those who produce it. He also argued that the task of scanning all six boxes can be shared but not delegated. DO 007, s. 2024 likewise makes the school head the SBM focal person, a role that “shall not be delegated nor reassigned”.

Worked example: tracing one output through the six boxes

An elementary school takes one output: the reading level of learners leaving Grade 6. Parents and the receiving high school are unhappy with it, while Grade 6 teachers say they do their best. The team interviews both groups, reads the records and observes two LAC sessions.

• Purposes: the SIP names reading as a PIA, but most teachers interviewed named “contest results” as the school’s real priority.
• Structure: reading is assigned to the Grade 6 advisers alone, although the gap starts in Grade 3.
• Relationships: Grade 3 and Grade 6 teachers never meet, and each group blames the other in interviews.
• Rewards: recognition goes to contest coaches; no one is recognized for raising reading levels.
• Leadership: the school head’s calendar shows most hours spent on reports and meetings outside the school.
• Helpful mechanisms: reading results are collected each quarter but not shared across grade levels.

The gap between the formal purpose and the informal practice is the main finding. The improvement areas go to the SIP: a reading committee across grade levels, a quarterly shared review of results, and recognition for reading progress.

Limits. The boxes have few stated links between them, and the environment sits outside the circle. Weisbord’s questions also need adapting to schools. Pair the model with PESTLE when community factors matter.

The GRPI model for school teams

The GRPI model stands for goals, roles, processes and interpersonal relationships. It is credited to Richard Beckhard’s 1972 article “Optimizing Team-Building Efforts” in the Journal of Contemporary Business. A 2022 evidence review by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) describes its assumption: a team needs clarity, agreement and support on all four elements to work well.

Users of the model check the four levels from the top down. A team in conflict often looks like it has a personality problem. Often the real cause is an unclear goal, then unclear roles, then unclear processes. Work on relationships helps little until the first three are clear.

Worked example: a project team that missed its deadlines

The SIP project team on learner attendance has missed two deadlines, and members blame each other. The school head does not start with a team-building activity. In the first meeting, the team writes its objective with a number and a date. Next, it lists every task with one person responsible for each. Then it agrees on a weekly 30-minute check-in and a shared tracker. In this example, the blaming stops within a month, because each member now knows what the others are doing.

Limits. GRPI works at the team level, not for the whole school. The CIPD review found no studies that tested the model as a whole. It found strong research support for its elements, such as clear goals, clear roles, information sharing and trust.

The Burke-Litwin model: culture and climate in a school

W. Warner Burke and George Litwin published “A Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change” in the Journal of Management in 1992. The full model is large. School heads gain most from two of its distinctions.

The first is between transformational and transactional factors. In the authors’ summary, transformational change responds to the external environment and affects mission and strategy, leadership and culture. These in turn affect the transactional factors: structure, systems, management practices and climate. Together they shape motivation, which shapes performance.

The second distinction is between culture and climate.

The distinction tells the school head what kind of change a finding needs. If the problem sits in climate or systems, a change in management practice may be enough, such as better meeting routines or a fairer schedule. If it sits in culture or mission, it needs a longer change led by the school head, and the guide to change management in schools applies.

Guide questions on culture and climate

• Which of our problems would ease if we changed a routine, a schedule or a meeting practice?
• Which problems have lasted through several school heads and several plans?
• What do teachers describe as “just how things are done here”?
• How do teachers describe the climate of their grade level or department this term?

Limits. The full model has many boxes and needs survey skills to use well. Most schools need only the two distinctions above.

The Nadler-Tushman congruence model

David Nadler and Michael Tushman described the congruence model in Organizational Dynamics in 1980. It treats the environment, resources, history and strategy as inputs. Four components turn those inputs into results: the work, the people, the formal organization and the informal organization. The results are judged at the individual, group and organization levels.

The model’s central claim is that performance depends on the fit between each pair of components. For example, a formal rule that teachers plan together fits poorly with an informal norm that every teacher plans alone. Use it in the same situations as the Six-Box Model, when formal arrangements look right but results do not follow. Three guide questions apply it to a school: Do the school’s rules, roles and schedules fit the work it must do? Do teachers have the skills and support that the work requires? Do the informal norms support the formal plan or work against it?

How to choose a diagnostic model and combine two

Choose the model by the question the school faces, not by habit. The table gives starting points.

Three rules help when combining models.

1. Pair one outside model with one inside model. PESTLE looks out; the 7S framework, the Six-Box Model or the Star Model looks in. The SWOT summarizes both.
2. Collect the data once and sort them twice. The same interviews and records can fill a 7S table and a SWOT.
3. Do not force a finding into a box. If a finding fits no element of the model, record it anyway. Every model leaves something out, and no single model sees the whole school.

How to involve teachers, learners, parents and the LGU in a diagnosis

DO 007, s. 2024 builds stakeholder participation into the self-assessment. Under its Step 1, the school “invites its internal and external stakeholders to participate in the self-assessment”. RA 9155 adds that the State “shall ensure that the values, needs and aspirations of a school community are reflected in the program of education”. A diagnosis done by the school head alone cannot meet either provision.

Four rules keep the process honest. Explain at the start that the purpose is to improve the school, not to rate persons. Report survey results by group, never by name. Use the language people speak at home. Share the results with everyone who took part, because people who see their input used are more willing to answer honestly the next time.

PPSSH strand 1.6, Learner voice, also asks school heads to use learners’ views in decisions. The SIP guide’s section on learner voice gives interview questions and methods. Before the diagnosis, Stakeholder Analysis for DepEd School Heads: A Guide shows how to list these groups and map their power and interest.

From diagnosis findings to the SIP’s priority improvement areas

A diagnosis is useful only when its findings reach the plan. Under DO 007, s. 2024, the school “integrates the results of its self-assessment in its strategic plan as identified improvement areas”. The results also enter the implementation plan “as a school program, project, or activity for continuous improvement”. Treat the findings of any diagnosis model the same way.

1. Write each finding as a statement with evidence. Name the source: a record, a survey result, an interview set or an observation.
2. Group related findings across models. A 7S finding on systems and a Six-Box finding on helpful mechanisms may describe the same missing routine.
3. Separate what the school controls from what it must respond to. Internal findings become improvement areas. External findings become conditions the plan must address, or partners it can use.
4. Bring the list to the gap analysis. Under DO 44, s. 2015, the SPT compares the school’s data with the Division’s targets and lists the areas with gaps. Diagnosis findings explain those gaps and add areas the targets do not cover.
5. Rate the improvement areas. The SPT uses the PIA rubric of DO 44, s. 2015: strategic importance, urgency, magnitude and feasibility. The SIP guide shows a worked rubric.
6. Keep community conditions on the list. DO 44, s. 2015 says “PIAs are not just limited to issues within the school”. Its examples of community situations are “flooding and unsafe school water source”.
7. Send each PIA to a project team for root cause analysis. A diagnosis shows where the parts of the school do not fit. Root cause analysis explains one problem in depth.

Common mistakes in organizational diagnosis

• Lists without evidence. “Supportive community” and “lack of discipline” are opinions until a record, survey or observation supports them. Ask “How do we know?” for every item.
• Blaming individuals. A finding that names a teacher turns the diagnosis into a performance review. Teachers then stop answering honestly. Describe the system, and handle individual performance privately.
• Diagnosing without acting. A SWOT filed in a binder changes nothing. Every major finding should appear in the SIP, in the AIP or in a written decision not to act on it yet.
• Wrong box. Putting an LGU program under strengths, or the school’s own schedule under threats, hides what the school can control.
• Solutions written as problems. “No computer laboratory” names a purchase. The problem is what learners cannot do.
• One model forced on everything. A model is a list of places to look, not the whole school. Record what does not fit.
• The school head alone, or the faculty alone. Learners, parents and the community see what teachers do not, and DO 007, s. 2024 asks for internal and external stakeholders.
• Copying last cycle’s SWOT. Conditions change. Start from new data each cycle.
• Diagnosing everything at once. A full diagnosis with every model can take a whole term. Choose two models that fit the question.

What the school head does: who does what, in what order

In practice, the school head follows this order.

1. Gather the school’s data and the latest SBM self-assessment results.
2. Choose two models that fit the school’s question, using the table above.
3. Explain the purpose to teachers, staff, learners, parents and community partners.
4. Collect data through records, surveys, interviews and observation.
5. Run the PESTLE, then the internal model, then the SWOT with the SPT.
6. Write the findings with evidence, and share them with everyone who took part.
7. Carry the findings into the gap analysis and the PIA rubric of the SIP.
8. Hand each PIA to a project team for root cause analysis, and plan the change.
9. Repeat the self-assessment and update the diagnosis in the next cycle.

PPSSH strands and Career Stage 1 indicators for organizational diagnosis

The PPSSH describes four career stages. Career Stage 1 school heads are aspiring school heads who “have acquired the prerequisite qualifications for the school head position”. The table quotes their indicators exactly.

The PPSSH guide lists every strand and indicator. The post on Domain 1, Leading Strategically reads strands 1.2 and 1.4 with DepEd data.

Practice: how the NASH may test this

DepEd Memorandum No. 069, s. 2025 aligns the NASH with the PPSSH and the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. Expect conceptual items that ask you to classify factors or match a model to its parts, and situational items on how to run a diagnosis. The best answer usually uses evidence, involves stakeholders, studies the system rather than blaming persons, and leads to action in the plan. The three items below are written in the NASH style for practice; they are not actual NASH items.

Question 1

Indicator 2.6.1, Emerging opportunities and challenges. Career Stage 1, Conceptual, Easy.

A planning team lists four items for its SWOT. Item 1: two teachers are trained as reading coaches. Item 2: a new municipal program will fund reading tutors. Item 3: the class program has no common planning time for teachers. Item 4: the access road floods in heavy rain. Which classification is correct?

• A. Items 1 and 2 are strengths and items 3 and 4 are weaknesses, because each item is sorted by whether it helps or hurts learners.
• B. Item 1 is a strength, item 2 an opportunity, item 3 a weakness and item 4 a threat, sorted by whether the school controls each item.
• C. Items 1 and 2 are strengths because both support reading, item 3 is a weakness, and item 4 is a threat outside the school’s control.
• D. None of the items can be classified until the root cause analysis is done, because the classification depends on the causes found.

Answer and explanation

Best answer: B. Points: A = 1, B = 3, C = 2, D = 0.

• A (1 point, Unistructural). It uses one dimension only, helpful or harmful, and ignores the internal and external dimension that a SWOT depends on.
• B (3 points, Relational). It applies both dimensions together. What the school controls is internal, what it does not control is external, and each is then judged helpful or harmful.
• C (2 points, Multistructural). It classifies items 3 and 4 correctly, but it treats the municipal program as a strength although the school does not control it.
• D (0 points, Prestructural). It confuses two different steps. The SWOT classifies factors during the diagnosis; root cause analysis comes later, for each PIA.

Why. This aligns with Career Stage 1 expectations because indicator 2.6.1 asks the aspiring school head to identify opportunities and challenges. A SWOT separates factors the school controls from those it must respond to, and that line decides the box. The flooded road stays in the plan as a threat: DO 44, s. 2015 says a PIA can be a community situation such as flooding.

Indicator 2.6.1: Identify emerging opportunities and challenges in addressing the needs of learners, school personnel and other stakeholders.

Sources: DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020; DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015, School Improvement Plan Guidebook, Activity 2.2; Puyt, Lie and Wilderom (2023).

Question 2

Indicator 5.5.1, Community engagement. Career Stage 1, Situational, Moderate.

You are a newly designated school head. A new SIP cycle starts next school year, and the school’s SBM self-assessment is due. A senior teacher suggests that the faculty complete the self-assessment and a SWOT in one afternoon, because “teachers know the school best”. What should you do?

• A. Plan the self-assessment and diagnosis with teachers, learners, parents, the SGC and barangay officials, collect their views without names, and share the results with all of them.
• B. Let the faculty complete both in one afternoon, then present the results to the PTA and the barangay at the next general assembly so that they are informed.
• C. Complete the self-assessment and SWOT yourself to save the teachers’ time, then ask the Schools Division Office to review your ratings before the plan is written.
• D. Send parents a survey that asks them to rate each teacher’s performance, then use the ratings as the main evidence for the school’s weaknesses in the SWOT.

Answer and explanation

Best answer: A. Points: A = 3, B = 2, C = 1, D = 0.

• A (3 points, Relational). It involves internal and external stakeholders as the order requires. It also protects honest answers and shares the results with those who gave them.
• B (2 points, Multistructural). It informs the community, but only after the faculty has decided. Parents and the barangay receive findings without helping to produce them.
• C (1 point, Unistructural). It respects teachers’ time, but the school head’s view alone leaves out what learners, parents and the community see.
• D (0 points, Prestructural). It turns the diagnosis into a rating of individual teachers. Teachers will stop reporting honestly, and the school’s systems are never examined.

Why. This aligns with Career Stage 1 expectations because indicator 5.5.1 asks the aspiring school head to involve the community in school programs. Under DO 007, s. 2024, the school “invites its internal and external stakeholders to participate in the self-assessment”. The option that informs the community after the fact gets communication right, but it misses participation, which is what the order and the indicator ask for.

Indicator 5.5.1: Involve the community, such as parents, alumni, authorities, industries and other stakeholders, in school programs, projects and activities to gain support for learner development, as well as school and community improvement.

Sources: DepEd Order No. 007, s. 2024, Section V.D; DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020; Republic Act No. 9155, Section 2.

Question 3

Indicator 1.4.1, Research and innovation. Career Stage 1, Situational, Difficult.

To reduce dropouts, a school head created a Learner Support Committee with a coordinator and one member from each grade level. Two terms later, the committee has met once, and no adviser has sent it a list of learners at risk of dropping out. Recognition still goes only to contest coaches. Several teachers say that committees “do not work in this school”. Using Galbraith’s Star Model, what is the best next step?

• A. Replace the coordinator with a more senior teacher, since the coordinator’s weak leadership is the main reason the committee has not worked.
• B. Dissolve the committee and return the task to the class advisers, since the teachers already believe that committees do not work in the school.
• C. Keep the committee, set a monthly meeting, and ask advisers to send monthly lists of learners at risk, then review the dropout figures at year-end.
• D. Keep the committee, check whether processes, rewards and people were set up to support it, and align each of them with the dropout priority.

Answer and explanation

Best answer: D. Points: A = 1, B = 0, C = 2, D = 3.

• A (1 point, Unistructural). It addresses one point of the star, people, and places the cause on one person without checking processes or rewards.
• B (0 points, Prestructural). It abandons the structure without a diagnosis and leaves the dropout priority with no team to carry it.
• C (2 points, Multistructural). It fixes two process gaps, the meetings and the flow of information. It does not check rewards or people, or how the five points fit together.
• D (3 points, Relational). It uses the model as intended. Structure is one of five design choices, and a new committee works only when processes, rewards and people are aligned with it.

Why. This aligns with Career Stage 1 expectations because indicator 1.4.1 asks the aspiring school head to use findings from reliable sources for evidence-based improvement. Galbraith’s Star Model holds that organization design is more than structure and that all five design choices must be aligned. The option with a meeting schedule and monthly lists fixes real gaps, but it treats them one at a time instead of checking the whole design.

Indicator 1.4.1: Identify relevant research findings from reliable sources in facilitating data-driven and evidence-based innovations to improve school performance.

Sources: Jay R. Galbraith, the Star Model (Galbraith Management Consultants); DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020.

More items scored this way are in the NASH practice questions with answers and the app’s timed practice sets.

Frequently asked questions

What is organizational diagnosis in a school?

Organizational diagnosis in a school is the systematic study of how the school works as a whole, so that the right improvements can be chosen. It checks how the school’s goals, structure, routines, people, rewards and community fit together, and it comes before the gap analysis and PIAs of the School Improvement Plan.

What are the 7S of the McKinsey model, with a school example?

The seven elements are strategy, structure, systems, shared values, style, staff and skills. In a school, strategy is the SIP, structure is the committees and teams, and systems are routines such as the class program. Shared values are the beliefs the school lives by, style is how the school head leads, staff are the teachers, and skills are what the school does well. A reading program fails, for example, when the SIP names reading but the class program has no reading time.

What is the difference between SWOT and PESTLE analysis?

PESTLE looks only outside the school, at political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental factors. SWOT looks both inside and outside: strengths and weaknesses are internal, opportunities and threats are external. A school usually runs PESTLE first and uses its findings to fill the opportunities and threats of the SWOT.

What are the six boxes in Weisbord’s Six-Box Model?

The six boxes are purposes, structure, relationships, rewards, leadership and helpful mechanisms. Marvin Weisbord published the model in 1976 and asked users to compare, in each box, what the organization says it does with what people actually do.

Does DepEd require a SWOT analysis in the School Improvement Plan?

No. DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015 and DepEd Order No. 007, s. 2024 do not require SWOT, PESTLE or any of these models by name. They require a gap analysis, the PIA rubric and the SBM self-assessment, and a diagnosis model is an optional tool for doing that work well. Check your division’s memoranda, because some divisions add a SWOT to their own templates.

More on school leadership

This post is part of a series on what a school head does under the DepEd rules in force today. The other posts, in reading order:

• RA 9155 Duties of DepEd School Heads: 12 Areas Explained
• Leadership vs Management for School Heads: Five Practices
• DepEd Revised SBM: DO 007, s. 2024 and the Self-Assessment
• DepEd School Improvement Plan (SIP): Steps, AIP and SRC
• Root Cause Analysis for the DepEd School Improvement Plan
• Change Management in Schools: A Guide for DepEd School Heads
• DepEd ILAW Lesson Plan, DO 016, s. 2026: School Head’s Role
• DepEd Grading System, DO 015, s. 2026: School Head’s Role
• DepEd Contextualization, Localization and Indigenization
• DepEd Instructional Supervision: Observing and Coaching
• DepEd Learning Action Cell (LAC) Guidelines: DO 35, s. 2016
• DepEd PMES for Teachers: DM 089, s. 2025 for School Heads
• DepEd Enhanced ALS, Inclusive Education and Special Programs
• Human Resource Management for DepEd School Heads
• DepEd School MOOE: Allowable Expenses and Liquidation
• RA 6713 for DepEd School Heads: Ethics and Internal Control
• Leadership Styles of School Heads: What the Evidence Says
• Instructional Leadership for DepEd School Heads
• Principal, Head Teacher or Teacher-in-Charge in DepEd
• OPCRF for DepEd School Heads in 2026: What Applies Now
• RA 9155 at 25: Why Shared Governance Has Not Happened
• Stakeholder Analysis for DepEd School Heads: A Guide
• SIP Communication Plan: Structure, Style and a Sample
• On the app: The roles of a school head, the six roles in one guide, and the PPSSH guide

Sources

• DepEd Order No. 007, s. 2024, Policy Guidelines on the Implementation of the Revised School-Based Management (SBM) System, Sections IV and V and Annex A.
• DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015, Guidelines on the Enhanced School Improvement Planning (SIP) Process and the School Report Card (SRC), with the School Improvement Plan Guidebook.
• Republic Act No. 9155, Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, Sections 2 and 7.
• DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020, National Adoption and Implementation of the Philippine Professional Standards for School Heads.
• DepEd Memorandum No. 069, s. 2025, Administration of the National Assessment for School Heads for Fiscal Year 2025.
• DepEd Orders No. 016, 015, 014 and 009, s. 2026, cited as examples of legal factors.
• Robert H. Waterman, Thomas J. Peters and Julien R. Phillips, “Structure Is Not Organization”, Business Horizons 23(3), June 1980, pages 14 to 26; Tom Peters, “A Brief History of the 7-S (‘McKinsey 7-S’) Model”.
• Richard W. Puyt, Finn Birger Lie and Celeste P. M. Wilderom, “The Origins of SWOT Analysis”, Long Range Planning 56(3), 2023, article 102304.
• Heinz Weihrich, “The TOWS Matrix: A Tool for Situational Analysis”, Long Range Planning 15(2), 1982, pages 54 to 66.
• Francis J. Aguilar, Scanning the Business Environment (Macmillan, 1967).
• Kurt Lewin, Field Theory in Social Science (Harper and Row, 1951).
• Jay R. Galbraith, The Star Model, Galbraith Management Consultants; and Jay Galbraith, Diane Downey and Amy Kates, Designing Dynamic Organizations (AMACOM, 2002).
• Marvin R. Weisbord, “Organizational Diagnosis: Six Places to Look for Trouble with or without a Theory”, Group & Organization Studies 1(4), December 1976, pages 430 to 447.
• Richard Beckhard, “Optimizing Team-Building Efforts,” Journal of Contemporary Business 1(3), 1972, pages 23 to 32; Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, People Performance Models: An Evidence Review, scientific summary, June 2022.
• W. Warner Burke and George H. Litwin, “A Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change”, Journal of Management 18(3), 1992, pages 523 to 545.
• David A. Nadler and Michael L. Tushman, “A Model for Diagnosing Organizational Behavior”, Organizational Dynamics 9(2), 1980, pages 35 to 51.

Written by Mark Anthony Llego for NASH Reviewer. Sources: DepEd Order No. 007, s. 2024; DepEd Order No. 44, s. 2015; Republic Act No. 9155; DepEd Order No. 024, s. 2020 and the PPSSH; DepEd Memorandum No. 069, s. 2025; Waterman, Peters and Phillips (1980); Puyt, Lie and Wilderom (2023); Weihrich (1982); Aguilar (1967); Lewin (1951); Galbraith; Weisbord (1976); Beckhard (1972); Burke and Litwin (1992); Nadler and Tushman (1980).