This course uses the CTU Professional Learning Model™ (CTU PLM) to teach students with hands-on, industryrelated, problem-solving experiences that model the professional environment and encourage achievements that
lead to student and employer success. The CTU PLM is founded on the idea that students learn best by working on
real-world, professional projects related to their chosen career fields. By working this way, students develop the
expertise to apply conceptual knowledge to get effective results. Through professional learning, students
experience the complexity of real-world problems and learn to select an appropriate approach to a problem that
has more than one solution. This method of learning is called Problem-Based Learning (PBL). PBL assumes that you
will master content while solving a meaningful problem in each assignment.
Throughout the course, you will work with a scenario in which some basic background information is provided
about a company. (This information could apply to any company that provides products or services of this sort in
general.) You have a role in the scenario; that is, you are part of the story. The dialogue in each assignment
presents the problem that must be solved. It is up to you to respond to the problem and submit a deliverable that
will be graded.
Refer to the following scenario as you progress through the PBL process.
Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Scenario: Cameron Mechanical & Automation, Inc. (CMA)
Cameron Mechanical & Automation, Inc. (CMA) is a fictional company that has been in business and operating in
the Silicon Valley since 1998. The company began as a successful Internet-based company (dot-com) and
experienced great success with the introduction of high technology. The company also experienced decline with
other dot-coms in 2001. As a result, CMA restructured and focused on its primary products; that is, computer
components. The early changes in the company were done quickly to downsize. Although many other companies
failed during this time, CMA managed to move forward.
CMA rebounded and continued to manufacture and sell its components to computer manufacturers worldwide.
The company structure was divided into product divisions, with each division focused on specific components. For
the company, this structure was meant to streamline sales and delivery worldwide.
In 2008, the economy had an effect on company profits, but the chief executive officer (CEO), Jared Smith, was in a
position to focus on several internal strategic areas, including structure, work design, motivation, conflict, and
company culture as a whole. To stay profitable, the company had to eliminate several management positions in an
effort to flatten the organizational chart. Many of the responsibilities fell to the employees, and many people
resisted the change.
As the economy recovers, CMA continues to rebuild. Since 2012, the company has been divided into a functional
structure that includes four departments: Research and development (R&D), marketing, production, and finance.
Each department is headed by a vice president who has responsibility over each of the functional areas. The
company currently sells components to computer manufacturers. As technology continues to advance, the CMA
R&D department and its vice president, Kevin Adams, are feeling pressure to keep up with the competition.
However, because of the differentiation and separation between the departments, the CEO is concerned that
communication is hampered.
In the last employee satisfaction survey, the CEO became aware of growing feelings of mistrust between employees
and managers. Hiring practices are also under scrutiny and criticism, because allegations of nepotism have been
leveled at the company. For these reasons and others, employee turnover and absenteeism is on the rise in all four
divisions. Staffing problems have made it difficult to meet customer expectations as the demand for company
products grows.
Because of the current structure and culture, the vice presidents who run each division of the company have
autonomy and are able to use different leadership styles. For example, the vice president of marketing, Jim Stevens,
uses a more democratic leadership style, while the vice president of production, Melissa Simons, is adamant that
her autocratic or transactional style is the only way to get results. Each leadership style has advantages, but the lack
of consistency between divisions may be causing problems for the company as a whole. Further, the CEO is
concerned that the workforce may not be as diverse as it should be, but he is not sure how to address the issue.
The CEO has hired you as an external organizational development consultant to help him identify problem areas
and to understand where changes should be made within the company. Over the next few weeks, you will also be
working with the CEO and managers in all four divisions of the company to help establish these changes. Your
various responsibilities will also include talking with employees at each level of the company to get a better
understanding about underlying problems.
So far, you are seeing inconsistencies in leadership practices in each of the departments, and you are concerned
that while the company is trying to improve its communication protocol, the different leadership styles may be
creating confusion. For example, when you talked to one of the production employees, Sonja Diaz, she explained
that she had many ideas for helping to streamline the production process, but feels she cannot share them because
of the transactional leadership. In the marketing department, one sales rep, Jerry McVie, felt that he was not being
challenged with his current goals and is even considering leaving the company to join one of the competitors. Lack
of communication between the divisional leaders might also be the cause of conflict between the departments
because they operate in silos. This separation between divisions may also be having a negative effect on middle
management staffing issues.
Weekly tasks or assignments (Individual or Group Projects) will be due by Monday and late submissions will be
assigned a late penalty in accordance with the late penalty policy found in the syllabus. NOTE: All submission
posting times are based on midnight Central Time.
Your training and development session about teams with the managers went very well, so well that the participants
expressed a desire to have some of the information that you discussed to be available in writing so they can
reference it, as needed. One person wrote the following in the postsession questionnaire:
The information I got during this training was very good. I’d like to have something I can
read about the different types of workgroups and teams you talked about during the
training session. Also, could you give us something that compares and contrasts the
various types of teams?
You decide that a 1,200-word paper should be enough to address this request. At that moment, the phone rings.
"Hello?" you answer.
"This is Jared Smith’s assistant calling."
"Hi, Della," you say. "How are you?"
"Very well, thanks," she says. "I’m calling to pass a message along from Jared. He left the
office in a rush this morning; he had a plane to catch. He wanted me to ask you to send
him a copy of the paper on teams that you’re sending to the managers who participated
in the training. He also wants your recommendation on which types of groups you think
would work most effectively at CMA. He said you’d understand what he means."
"I do," you say. "I can get that to him before our meeting next week. Does that work?"
"I believe it does," she says. "I’ll be talking to him later this afternoon and will let you
know if there’s a problem."
"Thanks, Della," you say.
