Ans. Administration in the nutshell
The key to understanding of what administration means lies in the following picture:
Fig. 1: Functioning of organization from the process perspective
It represents functioning of an organization as “
People running
processes based on
rules using
tools”
A
process (aka business process) is a set of activities (operations, tasks) aimed at creating a desirable outcome. Typical examples of processes are
sales (convincing a potential customer to buy one of our product/services),
service delivery (e.g., fixing a customer problem),
purchasing (choosing, buying and paying for things we need), product development, etc.
Fig. 2: Processes connect people
Some activities completed in the frame of a process belong to the category of doing something in the
real world, like
going to a customer site and
fixing some technical problem during service delivery. Others, like
getting instructions on where to go, and
reporting back on amount of time spent for fixing the problem, belong to
administration. They are needed to ensure the processes producing desirable outcomes. For example,
back reporting is needed for the finance department being able to send an invoice and ultimately get paid.
The goal of
administration (more exactly administrative activities) is to ensure smooth running of the organization’s processes by coordinating people participating in the processes, and providing them with information needed for completing their assignments.
Administration deals with gathering, processing, and communicating information. Practically, everybody working for an organization participates in the
administrative activities. Even those who do not hold any managerial position participate when receiving written or oral instructions and reporting back on the outcome of their work. Those who have managerial positions complete much more administrative activities, for example, they are engaged in planning of various processes, and assigning resources to various
do it in the real world activities.
The administration is regulated by
rules (operational instructions, or procedures) that prescribe or recommend who should be doing what and in what order in each type of the processes. Rules can exist in a written form or as a tradition. They can even be incorporated in computerized tools.
To carry out administrative activities people employ
tools. Typical tools here are communication channels, e.g. mail, email, telephone, chats, and information storage means, e.g., paper folders, shelves, boxes, computer servers, information systems etc. 