The material in this section is provided to help you begin to think through the organization’s structure and staffing requirements for your project.  If will also give you an overview of some of the key job functions such as marketing and operations common to most any organization.

The first place to start is your business textbook.  It explains a variety of organization designs and discusses the pros and cons for each.  When designing your own organization structure, answer the following questions (adapted form “Responsible Management” by Prof. John Miller of Bucknell University):

Differentiation:  Is there a logical way to divide the work?  What are the tasks?  Based on the tasks, what departments or divisions make sense?  How can tasks be broken up into jobs?  Are there any interdependencies among those jobs?  What groups of tasks should be kept apart so that the group can maintain control or so that they will not get in each other’s way.

Integration:  Is there a logical way to coordinate the work?  What coordination mechanisms are required among the departments to ensure that each department has the information that it needs to do its job?  What communications channels make sense?

Assignment (Staffing and Delegation):  Who will do the work?  What are the job descriptions for these jobs?  Who reports to whom?  How will people be assigned to these jobs?  Who has the formal authority to expect compliance of these job descriptions?  How will non-compliance be communicated?

Most businesses are either designed around functions or around goals (and there are of course hybrids).  Most IBC businesses design around functions.  One thing to remember, if during the course of operations the team decides that the organizations design they started with is not working, the team can decide to change it.

 Assure a Good Fit Between Jobs and People!

Once the major functions and activities have been determined and the organization structure drawn, begin work on the job descriptions.  Be sure that job descriptions are written down to avoid miscommunication and write them out first, so that the employees know what is expected of them and their managers know what is expected of them.  Then discuss the jobs as a team.  Don’t be tempted to fill positions just by asking people to volunteer for something that appeals to them.  Consider the actual job requirements, and the skills of the people vying for the jobs.  Not everyone can be a CEO or a manager.  No matter what position you hold in your organization you will learn a great deal about working in a business and about business in general.

The Communications/Technology Department is responsible for assuring effective communications by providing technology support to company officers and other company members and for providing quality control for the documents and oral presentations that are given in class.  Specific responsibilities include:

·          Setting up group mail for the company and assuring that each person is familiar with the email procedures.

·          Assisting with formatting all final documents, such as the business plan and other semester-end reports, assuring that they are submitted in a highly professional quality.

·          Preparing the PowerPoint slides for the company presentations, such as the meeting with the loan officers and the semester-end reports and training company members on these programs.  Reserving necessary equipment for the computer presentations.

·          Preparing home pages on the Web for the company.

·          Facilitate company meetings by assuring that agendas, appropriate follow-up, and effective discussion techniques are used.

·          Setting up a database that is needed for departmental or company-wide reports.

·          Providing in-service training individually or collectively to the company on these topics as needed.

The Finance Department is responsible for colleting, organizing, and reporting financial information, as well as for using that information to forecast the needs of the company.  Specific responsibilities include:

·          Writing the finance section of the business plan, including forecasted statements of financial position and determining the amount of loan needed to start up the company and to provide on-going cash flow.

·          Ensuring proper cash management policies and procedures and monitoring to verify that these are enforced.

·          Maintaining proper financial records of the activity of a business.

·          Reconciling financial activity and account balances upon the discontinuance of operations.

·          Providing in-service training individually or collectively to the company on appropriate financial topics or procedures as needed.

The Marketing Department is responsible for developing a marketing mission statement for the company.   It is also responsible for identifying a target market, helping to determine the buyer behavior of that market and preparing a marketing strategy that will enable the company to successfully market the product or service that is decided upon.  More specific responsibilities include:

·          Obtaining knowledge about the product or service.

·          Determining the right price for the product.

·          Deciding on the proper placement (distribution) of the product.

·          Developing a promotional campaign to make the company successful.

·          Evaluating the progress of the campaign and making adjustments if necessary with one of the four P’s.

·          Educating all company personnel on the marketing mission of the company.

Every organization creates some type of goods or services and thus has a production or operations function.  Every firm must consider how its products will be made or its services will be delivered.  Thus your specific responsibilities will include:

Writing the operations section of the business plan, including the basic process and the cost of maintaining a continuous production process.

·          Evaluating the quantitative and qualitative factors that impact the firm’s production.

·          Evaluating the facilities layout or process and making the decision to buy or make the input parts.

·          Providing in-service training individually or collectively to the company members on appropriate operations topics or procedures as needed.

Ground Rules for Your Company

Every company establishes ground rules, or “norms,” concerning how meetings will be run, how team members will interact, and what kind of behavior is accepted.  Some are stated aloud, others are understood without discussion.  Each member is expected to respect these rules, which prevent misunderstandings and disagreements.

A few of the more important ground rules to establish are:

Attendance:  Companies should place a high priority on meetings, regarding them as almost sacred.  Talk about what would be legitimate reasons for missing a meeting, and establish a consequence for absence from a scheduled team meeting.

Promptness:  Team meetings should start and end on time.  This makes it easier on everyone’s schedule and avoids wasting time.  How strongly does your team want to enforce this rule?  What can you do to encourage promptness?  What does “on time” mean to your team?

Meeting Place and Time:  Specify a regular meeting time and place, and establish a procedure for notifying members of meetings.

Participation:  Everyone’s viewpoint is valuable.  Every company member can make a unique company contribution to the project.  Therefore, emphasize the importance of both speaking freely and listening attentively.  If unequal participation is a problem, structure discussions so that everyone can contribute.

Basic Conversational Courtesies:  Listen attentively and respectfully to others;  don’t interrupt, one conversation at a time, etc.

Assignments:  Much of a companies work is done between meetings.  When members are assigned responsibilities, it is important they complete their tasks on time.  Find a way to verify that everyone understands their assignments and the consequences of not completing them.

Breaks:  Decide when to take breaks, how long breaks will be, etc.

Interruptions:  Decide when interruptions (phone calls, etc.) will be tolerated, and when they won’t.  Are cell phones and pagers turned on during team meetings?

Rotation of Routine Chores:  Decide who will be responsible for reserving and arranging the meeting room and other housekeeping chores, and how to rotate these duties among team members. 

Agendas, Minutes, and Records:  Please maintain an accurate record of agendas, minutes, reports, etc.  Teams should rotate the responsibility for taking minutes , writing reports, and setting agendas.  Decide how these issues will be handled in your team.  Also consider how team members can amend these records and how they can get access to them.

Leadership:  Some groups have assigned leaders while in others a natural leader emerges.  Decide if you want to select a leader or rotate leadership among the group.  Perhaps this decision could be postponed until the group members have had a second chance to get to know each other.     

Are there any ground rules you wish to discuss?