MOSS AND MCADAMS ACCOUNTING FIRM

SYNOPSIS
Moss and McAdams Accounting Firm was a well-established regional accounting firm with 160
employees located across six offices in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The main office where [Bruce]
Palmer worked, was in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
This case study deals with two projects handled by their main office in Green Bay Wisconsin.
Their office manager Ruby Sands is responsible for assigning project team leaders and team
members.
Mr. Palmer was able to select his team for the Johnsonville Trucks Audit project; he was pleased
with the five accountants assigned to his team; most notably was Zeke Olds, an Army vet, known
for coming up with innovated solutions to problems.
Mr. Olds is well liked and his talents were sought after at the firm. Additionally, Moss and
McAdams had just hired Ken Crosby, an accountant with nine years experience, hired to manage
the special consulting project (Springfield Metal Project ). Mr. Crosby wants Mr. Olds on his
team.
Rudy Sands was the office manager in the Green Bay office responsible for assigning personnel
to different accounts. The problem occurred when Ms. Sands assigned Mr. Olds to split time on
both teams; I assume she had no way of knowing this would have gone so poorly. However, I
believe this is her fault or at least her place to ensure this does not happen again in the future at
the Green Bay office or anywhere within Moss and McAdams again.
Risk Analysis From what I can see, the problem occurred once two project managers, Palmer and
Crosby wanted to both use Olds splitting time between the two projects. After a short while Olds
splitting time between both projects was hurting Olds family life and causing problems on
Palmers project. Ms. Sands is the office manager and responsible for who manages the team and
who will be on the teams. Ultimately, she is responsible for the break down in team performance.
Ms. Sands failed to support what leaders and team members need to understand about emotions:
people need to be valued, people need to feel a sense of belonging, people need a realistic and
hopeful future, and people need basic organization in their lives.
Aside from Ms. Sandys failure additionally, Mr. Crosby was not willing to work fairly with Mr.
Palmer; he did build an efficient team but at Mr. Palmers expense. He broke promises and did
little to build building social capital with Mr. Palmer in fact he did just the opposite.

Finally, Ms. Sands, Mr. Palmer and Mr. Crosby all failed Mr. Olds as he struggled to balance
both project teams and his family life. He was the one in the end who elevated the issues to Ms.
Sands; it seems strange to me that with the office manager and two team leaders involved one of
them should have been able to make the difficult decision without Mr. Olds forcing Ms. Sands to
make the choice.
QUESTION 1: If you were Palmer at the end of the case, how would you respond?
I would justify the necessity of Olds in audit to Ms. Sand again regarding keeping him in
Johnsonville project as he has expertise in financial information system
Speak to Olds personally about negotiation if possible to him
Accept the fact that Olds was not happy doing two different projects at the same time, even if
possible for a part time
Train or hire someone full time for Johnsonville project as it is a primary service of the firm and
needs a dedicated employee to be there full time
QUESTION 2: What, if anything, could Palmer have done to avoid losing Olds?
Objected the suggestions of sharing Olds
He should have spoken to Crosby and Sands before things got out of hand.
Palmer should not have compromised too much on priorities set for Johnsonville
Planned schedule for Olds would have been followed strictly.
As Olds was one of the skilled and demanding employee Palmer should have built a close
relationship by appreciation and rewarding more.
QUESTION 3: What advantages and disadvantages of matrix type organization are apparent
from this case?
ADVANTAGES:
Efficient resource allocation: Resources can be shared across multiple projects.
Strong project focus: Having formally designed project manager who focuses always on his or
her project.
Easier post project transition: Since it works partly on functional division they can return back
once the project is done.
Opportunity assessment: It evaluates an individuals skills and knowledge in different divisions,
which makes it easier further to assign the best person at best place.
DISADVANTAGES:
Dysfunctional conflict: Conflicts between functional managers in sharing resources, work could
be delayed and focuses maybe changed time to time, because everyone want the best to do their
project.
Stress: Project participants may have two bosses, therefore two different commands.
Inefficiency: some projects may get bogged down in decision making.
Work-Life imbalance: Failed to prioritize between "work" (career and ambition) and "lifestyle"
(health, family and self development).

QUESTION 4: What could the management at M&M do to more effectively manage situations
like this?
Managing this type of situations from M&M should need to:

Appoint more staff who can work efficiently

Apply effective time split between multiple projects
Arranging training and motivation seminars, whenever required
Management must monitor the situation what is actually happening in the company
Create open communication between employees and management
Provide some small space between work and life for employees
Offer a competitive benefits or financial rewards to the employees

HORIZON CONSULTING
SYNOPSIS
Horizon Consulting is a custom software development company that offers fully integrated
mobile application services for iPhone , Android , Windows Mobile and BlackBerry
platforms; founded by James Thrasher.
Horizon enjoyed initial success in sports marketing, but quickly expanded to other industries.
Patti Smith majored in Management Information Systems with a minor in Marketing; Horizon
hired her to be an Account Manager soon after graduation.
Patti Smith was hired to replace Stephen Stills who had started the restaurant side of the business
at Horizon.
She helped develop smart phone apps that let users make reservations, browse menus, receive
alerts on daily specials, provide customer feedback, order take- out and in some cases order
delivery. As an Account Manager she worked with clients to assess their needs, develop a plan,
and create customized smart phone apps.
The first step in developing a smart phone application involved the Account Manager meeting
with the client to define the requirements and vision for the application. The Account Manager
then works with a Graphic User Interface (GUI) designer to come up with how the application
would function and look. Once requirements were approved the Account Manager was assigned
two pairs of software engineers. At the end of each project Account Managers submitted
performance reviews of their team.
It took Horizon two to four months to deliver a finished product to a client.
Patti was currently working on three projects. One was for Shanghai Wok, second was a busy
Chinese mom and pop restaurant located in downtown Charlotte, and third was in North
Carolina.
In status report meeting, James Thrasher entered the room and started off as he always did by
asking if anybody had important news to bring to everyones attention. Jackson Browne said, I
am afraid I do. I just received notification from Apple IOS that they have rejected our TAT app.
Thrasher asked who the engineers that worked on this project were. And one of the app
engineers who had developed the TAT app was working on Pattis Shanghai Wok project. She
knew what was going to happen next. Thrasher announced that these engineers are the best ones
to finish what they had started so they are all going to have to be reassigned back to the TAT
project.
The meeting then proceeded as planned with each account manager reporting the status of their
projects, and sharing relevant issues with the group.

There were three other Account Managers as well as Jackson Browne confronting issues in their
projects. Horizon had developed a policy where decisions were made based on project priority.
Each project was assigned a Green, Blue or Purple designation based on the company priority.
The Shanghai Wok project given was a Purple project, which was the lowest ranking.
The list of available software engineers was displayed on the big screen and the account
managers had no other choice but to choose only from the list. And Patti was only familiar with a
few of the names.
When everyone else finished selecting a software engineer for their project, it was then Pattis
turn and she chose Mike Thu (whom she was not familiar with).
But Jackson recommended her to work with Axel Gerthoff as he was a very quick study and a
joy to work with. This was a relief to Patti and she quickly took his advice.
QUESTION 1: How successful was the post-meeting?
Their post-meeting went very well. They were able to juggle their companys resources amongst
their existing projects with the end result of allocating replacement resources necessary to
complete the projects. They had the problem of having two app engineers needing to be called
back to their prior project. Their return to this prior project made sense as they would be the ones
needed to finish it in the shortest amount of time. The post-meeting was held to devise a
replacement strategy for these engineers on their current projects. The project managers were
able to solve this problem and keep their projects on track.
QUESTION 2: What factors contributed to the success or failure of this meeting?
There were two main factors that contributed to the success of the post-meeting: structure and
culture.
The structure of the project ranking system dictated the main decisions that had to be made.
Through the use of this system, the project managers could tell which projects were priorities and
which required certain resources more urgently than others.
The culture of the organization however was the main influencing factor in this meetings
success. All of the project managers were eager to work with each other as well as recommend
and give advice as to which app engineers may work better than others. This shows a culture of
camaraderie amongst the project managers. They are dedicated not just to their own projects, but
all of the projects of the organization. This point of company culture is further highlighted by the
story of the former project manager who was let go for hoarding resources.
QUESTION 3: What kind of project management structure does Horizon use? Is it the right
structure? Explain.
Horizon Consulting uses a matrix organizational structure. Horizon is organized into three
departments consisting of Sales, Software Development and Graphics. Accounts managers (from
the Sales department) double as project managers. These project managers in turn manage
resources from these three departments who are assigned to their projects. Some engineers would

work on a project full time, while others would be assigned to multiple projects at once. The
department heads would manage engineers assignments and schedules with the account
managers reporting to the Director of Sales.
As described above, Horizon Consulting operates within the organizational parameters of a
matrix structure and has success in doing so. Clearly this structure also fits their organizational
culture where collaboration, performance and attaining company goals are highly valued.