Placement in the course:
The Peppercorn Dining case is the second of several cases at the end of Part 2 in the text. The Part
2 chapters have described the fundamental processes of organization development, including entry
and contracting, data gathering, data feedback, intervention design, and evaluation. The Peppercorn
case is rich in detail around how a small group of consultants began an IM process and collected a
broad range of data. It is a very action oriented case in that it ends at a natural breakpoint in the IM
process – a set of data has been gathered, needs to be analyzed, and a process for feeding back
the date needs to be designed. It is a good case to give students a chance to think through these
issues, propose some alternatives, and discuss the pros and cons of different approaches. (Note: If
this type of case is appealing to the instructor, the BR Richardson Timber case in the Integrative
Case section at the end of the text has a similar structure.)
Overview of the case:
Peppercorn Dining is a restaurant on the All American University campus and serves students who
have purchased “meal plans” as well as cash-paying customers. A group of consultants from Square
One Consulting was having lunch at Peppercorn when they bump into Drew, Peppercorn’s manager.
One of the consultants, Erica, worked at Peppercorn as a student. Based on this chance meeting,
Drew describes the situation at Peppercorn as he sees it and they eventually reach an agreement to
do some operational auditing. After several days, the group of three consultants, Roger, Lynn, and
Erica, collect data from managers at the restaurant, representatives from the parent dining
organization for the university, and from various student, full time, and temporary employees. Their
interviews cover various operations functions, including serving, the kitchen, cashiers, dishwashers,
and supplies.
Toward the end of the first day of observations and interviews, Erica describes a new development,
the announcement that the university will be constructing a new dining facility and that Drew will be
the head of the new unit. The consultants complete their interviews and observations and must
make sense of the data collected as well as think through the purpose and design of a feedback
session where Drew will hear about their conclusions and recommendations.
Teaching Plan: (60 minutes)
There are a variety of issues to sort out in discussing this case. The questions at the end of the case
ask students to a) comment on the quality and type of data collected as well as the process used, b)
think about how the data might be analyzed, and c) design a feedback session.
