The pace of global, economic, and technological development makes change an inevitable feature of organizational life. However, change that happens to an organization can be distinguished from change that is planned by its members. Here, the term change will refer to planned change. Organization development is directed at bringing about planned change to increase an organization's effectiveness. It is generally initiated and implemented by managers, often with the help of an OD practitioner either from inside or outside of the organization. Organizations can use planned change to solve problems, to learn from experience, to reframe shared perceptions, to adapt to external environmental changes, to improve performance, and to influence future changes.
All approaches to OD rely on some theory about planned change. The theories describe the different stages through which planned change may be effected in organizations and explain the process of applying OD methods to help organization members manage change.