Failed to align with strategic plan and capture larger districts Chris and her team when

developing the new integrated budget and planning system they pursued information with
districts and as information came in they adjusted the system to suit the specific needs that were
unique to districts. This caused the team to lose sight of what they were supposed to be focusing
on causing members within the team to voice concerns about the direction DSS was going. The
group forged on and completed their task and while it was a terrific job the marketability of the
system to the larger districts which the strategic plan was centered on, Chris admitted herself
that she knew that larger districts at this point in time would not be interested in the system in
its current form which to Meg displayed that Chris and her team failed in applying their system to
the companys strategic plans.
While these were the blaringly obvious deterrents of the case there was also deeper issues which
caused this to happen which can be seen below the iceberg. The lack and ineffective
communication created a butterfly effect of other issues to occur. The communication in the
hierarchy of the organizational structure between Meg and Chris, other cross-functional teams
and Chris, and the Southwest team and Chris further displayed poor leadership and breakdowns
in the organizational structure. This first started with the re-organization of the teams to crossfunctional teams and practice teams that would supply specialized expertise to those teams but
with fewer staff than in the past. This caused a great deal of anxiety among many consultants
about the future of DSS and their roles in the new structure. Communication between Chris and
the other DSS functional specialists was through email where she gave a program description on
what the team was working on, which was simply acknowledged but no real comments were
offered. Further when members of the Southwest team sought out the functional specialists they
were often not given much help and were occasionally rebuffed. This led to Chris having to go to
the manager herself to seek support and even though she was assured by the manager that
someone would work on it, when someone on Chris team contacted the specialist, he was told
that the project wasnt even apart of their schedule and they would not be able to help until
other things got done. This caused much dissatisfaction among the southwest team.

Megs communication with Chris was quite lacking, as the COO of the organization her
communication with members of staff would be key in the alignment of carrying out the strategic
plan of the organization. Chris met occasionally with Meg to update her on the project, however
those meetings were generally short. Furthermore Chris observed that some of the other team
leaders spent more time meeting with Meg than she did. When Chris initially sent out an email
with a detailed description of the program, Meg responded by asking a couple of questions and
saying she and Chris would talk more about it later. When Chris encountered problems with the
other cross-functional teams she scheduled a meeting with Meg to discuss the difficulty her team
was having in getting support. From Chriss perspective while Meg seemed sympathetic, she felt
the meeting did not go particularly well and hoped that Meg would take more direct action. After
initial completion of the project Chris once again met with Meg, which she felt started off very
well and spoke about the positive response about Chriss leadership, Meg then shifted the
conversation to express her concerns on how the system would be able to work with other DSS
projects and with larger districts. Chris responded that she understood her concerns and they
discussed, after this, Chris and Meg exchanged a few pleasantries and the meeting ended.
As DSS was making the transition to the new structure and the Southwest Region team was
formed, Chris believed it was very important that her team members be located together as she
felt the co-location would allow the group the group from getting distracted, this created the
team to start working in a vacuum. What this means is that when working in a vacuum you
ignore outside factors, not necessarily all other factors, but basically everything not accounted
for is ignored as being insignificant. Team members besides being apart of the project also had
their other work duties to perform finishing up other consulting projects and were spending
nearly all their time working with one another and saw less and less of the other consultants who
were not on the team, when members mentioned what they were working on with their other
teams it seldom generated much interest and was sometimes seen as almost a distraction to the
group. Chris further developed this vacuum by ensuring to keep her group focused on the project
and to help in avoiding any distractions and to continue building cohesion. When the team faced
issues with from getting help from other teams and Chris had a meeting with Meg about the
situation which did not go well the team reacted negatively. The felt that some of the decisions at
DSS seemed to be more political under the new organization and the new Meg seemed to be
playing favorites.
Organizational culture and change management is used to facilitate or inhibit change in the
organization, the attempt for this change because the current culture hinders the attainment of
corporate goals. Due to stagnation in revenue growth as a result of changes in the market, DSS
Consulting there was a need for new marketing strategies through a strategic change which
included a controversial re-organization. The changes created dissatisfaction, anxiety,
uncertainties and ambivalence. As the new team were formed they also had to work with fewer
staff members than in the past. Leadership changes and allowing the teams to exercise flexibility
resulted in poor use of resources as the southwest team continued to develop a system which
Meg eventually decided would not be of use and not be implemented. Decision making on the
part of Meg in deciding to not move forward with the integrated budgeting and planning system
seemed to be poor as it was not fully disclosed what the system could do.