Analyse the events that contributed to the current state of the motherboard transition

Following a careful analysis of the case and the several events that contributed to the overall situation, we conclude that a multiplicity of factors converge to generate the situation described. To properly assess these different factors and events we have decided to develop a multi-causal analysis:

* Company structure and organizational culture events – Introducing change and its consequences * Technical complexity and technical risk * Rapport and follow-up strategy events – Superior-subordinate relationship, feedback and interpersonal conflict * Priorities and workflow coordination events

Structure and culture:

Manufacturing vs. Design

We can identify strong evidence that there is a deep lack of understanding of the culture of manufacturing by the design unit and vice-versa. This factor is perfectly clear when the manufacturing engineers’ complain about the working procedures of the design unit, as quoted “They can’t work the production problems from an office… each week we had to spend time trying to convince them that we knew what we were doing”.

Such lack of understanding might contribute to inefficient communication between the two teams, affecting the execution of the project. The manufacture part of the project requires the active contribution of engineers from both units. It is, therefore, essential that those two teams work closely together in order to proceed with the project. Notwithstanding, several problems arose, as illustrated in the statements presented before. We will discuss further how and why this lack of understanding could have been originated.

Cooperation among different cultures and structures

As presented in the case, the company is currently passing through a restructuring that intends to change the reputation of the company from “a design shop” to production, with a comprehensive $450M manufacturing improvement program.

In order to maximize the potential of the engineers, the company operated under a cultivation and competence culture, promoting the product leadership and disruptive innovation that was required in that environment. This is clearly illustrated when the working environment is described as allowing “wide latitude to pursue technical excellence according to their vision”.

The manufacturing department on the other hand had a completely different culture and working environment. In order to meet the common requirements, they follow a control culture, promoting the competence and efficiency of the manufacturing activities1 “manufacturing was a different world”.

The cooperation between these two working cultures (cultivation and competence1) is naturally difficult. On top of this, it’s also important to note that the preparation of the design engineers to deal with this new situation was very limited. In fact, it is referred that they had no specific education dealing with this situation, administrative training had been informal “learning through osmosis”.

In order to mitigate this problem two junior engineers had been allocated to this project, but they left before the manufacturing part. This raises concerns related to the different priorities of each department.

Different priorities:

Events that show different priorities

In several events described in the case we can clearly identify misalignment between the priorities of the design team (which is the successful fulfilment of the project respecting both schedule and budget) and the priorities of the manufacture unit (which had 10 to 20 projects to develop). We can illustrate this by the following comments from the design engineers: “Charleston did not take responsibility for the problem… they seemed to feel that it just wasn’t their job.”

We can additional illustrate this misalignment by several events that happened during the project, notably the complaint from the design engineers that sometimes they couldn’t get to the soldering machines to run the tests.

The situation when two manufacturing engineers allocated to the design team eventually left the company, allow us to consider the hypothesis that the valuation of the relevance of this project is different from the perspective of manufacturing to the design unit. Supposing the situation described where it explained that those engineers were probably younger and with fewer ties with the company (this is an assumption as we can’t confirm this with the data given) could contributed to increase the possibilities that such problem arises and show once more the different priorities of each unit.

Reasoning about this problem

We note that these conflicts are not independent than those conflicts caused by the coexistence of different structures in the company. In fact, in general, differentiation in a company is conductive to conflicts. This case is paradigmatic of that situation, it is interesting to refer that differentiation of a company (manufacture + design in this case) could conduce to interdependence, and generally disagreement on goals and disagreement on means.

Interdependence - both units need each other in order to execute the project.
Disagreement on goals – it is clear that both units want to accomplish the project but, in fact, the manufacture unit has 20 other projects to complete. Its overall goal is therefore complete all 20 projects, which is different from completing this particular project alone.

Disagreement on means – This is shown by the disputes related to the amount of time allocated to the tests. In fact, this is also related to the fact that manufacture has other projects to develop and, therefore, manages its resources considering all projects and not this particular one.

Technical Risk

Other important factor is the technical risk and sophistication of this project. We acknowledge that this problem can’t be easily mitigated; it is although important to consider this factor and understand the risk that it represents. The technical risk associated with the project is clear when it is stated that: “Many of the technologies outlined in the proposed were untried” and that “the design was infeasible”.

The fact that the technical team and Yoshino only were introduced to this project after the contract was signed also contributed to the inherent difficulties of the project.

Rapport and follow-up strategy

We can identify several events related to the reporting from Pastore to Scalia, and to Yoshino that have been source of interpersonal conflicts within the team. Some communication problems between Yoshino’s design team might also have contributed to the escalation of the problem or, at least, a late assessment of the issue, as it is well noted in the following statement. “It would have been a lot easier if we had known this from the start”.

Let’s now analyse this situation in more detail. Yoshino began his projects by negotiating schedules and budgets with his team. This approach naturally has several advantages (commitment, improve the quality of the decisions, motivation of the teams) but also puts extra pressure on team leaders as he is accountable if any delay or over expense is incurred.

Yoshino followed the teams’ projects by a twice a month meeting with their leaders. Meetings were considered intense and Yoshino pushed them to meet the schedule and budget. This pressure might not promote the open and honest communication as there was a clear bad judgement if any delay and/or over-budget were reported. To worsen this, it is known that the main promotion criterion in the company was the word of the other engineers. Therefore, if any relevant program was reported this could have (or at least be interpreted as having) bad career repercussions: “You never really wanted to be the bearer of bad news”.

We can consider that this kind of organization and reporting procedures regardless the intention of “avoiding major surprises”, could in fact induce the opposite, opening the doors to the escalation of the Mum Effect (resistance to communicate bad information or problems to the hierarchy, due to the fear of being associate with that information) between the team leaders and Yoshino.

The description made about Scalia personality might support our assumption that, at least to some extent, this effect might be relevant in this case – Scalia was inordinately interested in maintaining a “good appearances” with superiors.

The behaviour described and analysed before might justify to some extent the letter sent from Pastore to Scalia, Yoshino Nadal. Pastore’s attitude, regardless the reason, could contribute to foster an affective conflict between Scalia and him when, supposedly the intentions were merely cognitive.

This whole situation is very complex. Although we can’t be fully certain of this diagnosis, we have sufficient information to suppose that Scalia might have a personal and unclear agenda when dealing with this issue and, additionally might be susceptible to the Mum Effect3 with Yoshino.

The complex behaviour patterns of the different actors contribute to a lack of trust within the team, which might represent a major problem in the short term. This is clear when Scalia and Yoshino ask for their own tests to the equipment and did not use those sent by Pastore.

What do you think Yoshino will do in response to Scalia´s latest complaint about cooperation with Charleston?

Senior executives at Parsons claimed that “internal entrepreneurship has been the rule; the company is not paternalistic… it seems as if you have thousands anarchists running around defining their own jobs” this might lead you to interpret that Parson has a lack of internal structure and communication, it seems as if everyone works independently.

As stated in the case and described before, Yoshino followed the chain of command and only kept in close contact with those whom he considered having a direct reporting relationship, in this case Scalia and the other accountable engineers. This lead to Pastore worrying that Yoshino didn’t have the accurate picture of what was happening, due to the lack of information between the main office and the production team.

Taking this into account, we believe that Yoshino is going to continue to persuade Scalia into fixing the situation claiming that learning how to deal with production is his responsibility. We can clearly identify that Yoshino trusts Scalia’s judgment and thought his approach on solving that soldering procedure was sound. Despite Pastore’s efforts to contact Yoshino directly, he kept communicating through Scalia.

What do you think should be done?

Time is running short, Yoshino is being forced to finish on time and also create a high performance sonar device that should be manufactured cost-efficiently and with high quality.

First, he should try to resolve the friction between the design and manufacturing units. Yoshino should give them equal treatment, and also supervise that both align their priorities, which in this case is completing the development of the motherboard effectively and on time.

Second, the Parson’s dynamic environment has encouraged engineers to be “self-managing professionals”. To be successful they feel the need to take charge of the situation, it could be due to the lack of an effective structure and communication between the units involved in the project, or in this case Yoshino’s lack of belief in micromanaging, and believing that handling Pastore is one of Scalia’s responsibilities.

Yoshino should try to encourage Scalia to improve the communication inside his team, and address his inability to gain the support of the manufacturing engineers at Parsons. They should understand the important role each unit plays in the effectiveness of the project and how they complement each other. They should be encourage to work as a group than each unit by themselves as they have been doing. We can also say that Yoshino has the challenge of changing behaviors of his subordinates to echo new competitive conditions.

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[ 1 ]. Richard M. Burton, Borge Obel, and Gerardine DeSanctis. Organizational Design: A Step-by-Step Approach. Cambridge University Press, 2006
[ 2 ]. Stephen Barley, Power and Culture, Stanford University, 2010
[ 3 ]. Abraham Tesser, Sidney Rosen, Marsha Tesser. The reluctance to communicate undesirable Messages (the Mum Effect): A field of study. University of Georgia, 1971