In this article Peter Smith sets out to explain the approach to organisational analysis felt by him to be the most appropriate in the area of training. It suggests an approach to the process of change and development that has differed from previous techniques of management training in which the focus has shifted from the individual, micro level to the macro level of the organisation as a system interacting with its environment and a shift from prescription to prescription. Organisational analysis has been shown to be closely associated with a particular way of thinking and before the analyst can hope to begin work in an organisation he has to educate his clients in his own way of thinking and to move them away from their perceived need for prescriptive solutions to seemingly simple problems. Here the author has looked at a model of organisation which has proved effective as a means of understanding the organisation from the wider perspective required by the organisational analyst. The model as outlined has value both as a means of gaining information and as a tool for educating managers to view their organisation from the wider viewpoint. In accepting the managers' need for a more oriented way of looking at specific problems, he has suggested a means where by studying certain interfaces it is possible to look at the ‘smaller’ but equally important areas of the organisation, whilst still maintaining the organisation perspective. What the author has indicated here is a way of looking at the organisation that combines both theory and practice — a sociological approach that has been used successfully and can be used by the training adviser once he has been given the basic tools of analysis.