This course uses the
CTU Professional Learning Model™ (CTU PLM) to teach students with hands-on,
industry-related, 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.
