Critical thinking case study analysis and application

Cliff assumed that Pat will prove to be a boon to our place in the market. He thought that a new venture will be launched by the end of the year and made these deadlines without consensus with other departments. He also assumed Pat and Chris will work together to recapture position as a market leader with the help of technology. He also assumed that every department (except Sales and Marketing, our key revenue generators) will find ways to reduce budgets by 15% in the coming quarter.

Pat passed a judgment that there are certain factions within the company that do not see a path to the product launch. Pat also made unrealistic assumptions about expenditure and considered it a reasonable capital outlay with a substantial ROI. Pat also assumed that programmers are the best and they will continue to work to refine the features a little.

Cliff on the other hand showed his reservations regarding the budget. He also considered the progress report good, but the budget problematic.

Kelly the engineer had reservations regarding the product development how can they maintain existing service with already short staff, and find time to make up something new. Kelly also complained that programming is tough task and those who do not know it cannot make such decisions. Pat also boasted about his previous experience that there is a process to follow to make sure whatever we develop will meet our QC standards and the customers' needs.

Initial assessment of the project turned out to be completely wrong as they assumed extra features for the new product which later on were reduced to only a few. Not only this but the series of email exchanges among different members became nasty and turned into personal assaults and business purpose became lost in between. Members also made fallacious statements that also aggravated the problem and situation became out of control requiring serious attention.

Conclusions

Problems and its Reasons:

Interdepartmental Conflicts: For every organization there are external as well as internal clients. Internal clients are departments within the company, for example, product development is the client of marketing department and vice versa. If these do not function in a normal manner then organization will eventually suffer. The main problem with the company seems to be interdepartmental conflicts.

Organizational Communication: Previously too many meetings taking place was considered a concern for the organization but in the current age of email communication too much of email communication is considered a problem for the company. In this company in particular the communication seems to be the problem because of which complications have been created.

Clarity of Goals: An organization flourishes when its members have clarity of goals and they own the missions and work towards achieving their goals. The organization in the case study suffers from the confusion among its organizational members. They do not seem to be on same level when it comes to understanding and owning the goals and mission of the organization. The organization seems to be in the state of flux due to different pressures to cut costs and expenditures and lay offs etc.

Underlying Problem

Underlying problem with the company seems to be a management problem because of which the project for the new product seems to be suffering. Management must be a support to the overall health of the organization which in this case was conspicuous by its absence. Discussion through emails show that the management function was absent.

Alternative Solutions

Solution 1: The Company could implement 'Open Book Management' philosophy in organization. 'Open book' concept emphasizes the point that every staff person should make an effort to learn and understand the firm's financial and other pertinent information necessary to track the firm's performance. By doing that members of the organization realize that they have a stake in the organization as well. They no longer remain hired employees of the organization but they in fact become business people in the real sense as they try to understand every aspect of the business. The strength of this solution is that employee will themselves be able to see if they are contributing to the organization or not. The negative point is regarding the training required to be imparted to members of the organization for them tom understanding the books and numbers.

Solution 2: The Company could form cross-functional team in its true spirits with clarity of goals. Cross functional teams are formed to carry out special projects where different minds sit, brainstorm and make combined efforts to successfully implement a project. This empowerment through teamwork will develop their problem solving skill and they will become a part of the big picture. Whether employees are working individually or they are part of the cross-functional teams, unless they know the goals and aims, the impact of their actions on bottom line and what they can and should do to improve the situation, all such modern concepts of teams do not actually make their impact.

The strength of cross function teams is that they are easy to implement but the negative is that they usually fail when there is no clarity of goal and members do not own it.

Proposed Solution

The proposed solution to management would be to make cross functional teams that should actually sit together and work to resolve the problems regarding the project. The role of senior management and that of CEO in particular would be of utmost importance. The CEO must be the part of cross functional teams for its successful implementation.

Executive Summary