Senior Project
SumA06-SecR
Instructor: Ed Pinero

CanGo Final Report
August 30, 2006

Nathalie Charles
Pajseu Chung-Vu
Loretta M. Ratliff
Robert Sagar

CanGo Findings and Recommendations

During the past seven weeks members of Team B Consulting Services have observed CanGo’s systems, management practices, processes and operational procedures for the purpose of finding opportunities for enhancements. This time has been quite productive thanks to the assistance and efforts on the part of CanGo’s managers and employees. Our collaborative efforts have identified several challenges, problems and deficiencies that currently hinder the fully productive efforts of the CanGo organization.
This report includes the highest priorities for review and recommendation. Certainly there are other opportunities for action on the part of CanGo; however, we wish to place a clear focus on the best opportunities for higher returns to the company.
Ineffective leadership is the greatest challenge faced by CanGo. Within the first few days of our observations we realized that we were working with an inexperienced and untested leadership team. Granted, CanGo has had some great success in the past four years and has fostered a good working environment for all employees. However, over the course of our time here we have come to realize much of CanGo’s success story is built upon sand rather than a firm foundation of strong leadership, informed choices and engaged employees. Some of the choices that have been made in the past are causing some great distress in this company and are consuming more dollars than they are returning.
The leadership team struggles to come together and make informed decisions that would strategically align this business. Following are examples of observations which support this concern:
Vague plans and or goals when discussing items with team members (e.g. Warren’s interactions with his team and assignment of responsibilities that don’t match skills – assignment of a critical project to the newest, most inexperienced team member; a programmer assigned the duty of resolving customer service issues).
No evidence of a drive to attain the new skills that are needed for implementing a new venture or new course of action for operations.
No honest to goodness “hashing out” of ideas, with data-backed thoughts, leading to well-informed and advantageous business choices. This has been demonstrated in every leadership team meeting.
No project management leadership is present.
Strategic direction nor a clear vision have ever been discussed by the leadership team.
Employees experience the same performance feedback, regardless of their performance.
Employees are not challenged through the use of performance objectives or measures.
Bounded rationality leading to saticficing with the “rush” into on-line gaming without true research or appropriate dialogue.
The Management Team demonstrated great difficulty in flowcharting customer service processes and call center support work flows.
Ineffective planning has created problems beyond what any contingency could repair (e.g. unable to meet last year’s holiday demands which increased costs for administrative efforts, shipping, duplication of processes and loss of business).
Our recommendation for enhancing the quality of the leadership team is through skill development, job descriptions, overhauling the performance appraisal process and establishing formal processes for strategic planning (processes must include proactive management of the plan). Following are specific tasks which we will facilitate for you:
Create job descriptions for all roles within the CanGo organization.
Include business skills as significant requirements for the HR Manager role
Develop training plans for all managers at CanGo.
Courses and opportunities to include
Half-day teambuilding activity facilitated by World Class Teams Adventures in Teambuilding – Robyn Benincasa, Facilitator
Half-day idea