2. Review Chapter 7A - Proposing a Data Gathering Strategy at Aerotech, Inc. and answer the following questions:

a. What is the client requesting? What are the presenting problems?

b. What do you think may be any underlying problems? Which of these underlying problems is most likely, in your view?

c. What data would illustrate whether these underlying problems are occurring? Which method of data gathering would you use, and why?

d. What are the advantages and disadvantages of that method? Include a proposed timeline for your approach and any details about the data gathering method itself, including possible interview or survey questions, documents to gather, or observations you would conduct.

Please include references Thank you!

I want to thank you for meeting with me,\" said Patrick Delacroix. \"We have an important issue that I'm hoping you can address. It's costing the company a lot of time and money, and I think that the project that we're going to plan out will really help solve a major problem in our group.\" Patrick Delacroix, executive vice president of engineering for Aero-Tech, an aerospace technology research and products rm, was sitting behind a large walnut desk at Aero-Tech headquarters. Cassandra Wilson, an organization development consultant in the Aero-Tech human resources department, had been assigned to consult with the engineering organization and was anxious to hear more about the problem that Patrick had called her to discuss. Aero-Tech headquarters is located in the suburbs of a large metropolitan area. It is housed in an older concrete building that was built in the 1970s without many windows or the showy glass and steel architecture characteristic of many of the other companies in the area. In fact, these days it would be easy to drive by the headquarters and not know that this major multimillion-dollar company was even located there. Aero-Tech has a long and distinguished history, having been a major supplier to the top government contractors contributing to US. space and defense programs in the 1980s. In the past 20 years, however, it has fallen out of favor among government contractors as quality problems plagued the company's products. The company briey considered bankruptcy but averted a Chapter 11 filing when its new CEO was named 4 years ago. The CEO helped the company to partially recover by revising its strategy, and as a result, Aero-Tech has now begun to diversify into other areas in which there is higher demand. Some of these new business segments have become very successful enterprises, but it is clear that the pressure is high to succeed in the new lines of business. An article in the local newspaper predicted the demise of Aero-Tech if annual losses continue at the present rate, and it suggested that based on nancial analysts' projections, layoffs this year are almost certain to repeat last year's 16% reduction of Aero-Tech staff. \"With nancial performance mirroring last year's,\" the article concluded, \"we may be witnessing the slow death of one of the metro area's original companies. Unless it merges or is acquired, we would be surprised if we are still reporting on Aero-Tech news a few years from now.\" Patrick began at Aero-Tech nearly 25 years ago as an associate engineer, a few years after he finished his doctorate in engineering from a local university. He has witnessed the extensive changes in research and development of engineering products in his various roles as engineering manager for metals fabrication, as director of the new component division, and now as vice president of the entire engineering operation. He lived through the decline in personnel and morale after quality problems forced the closure of the fabrication operation, but he also oversaw the rise in revenues following the successful component products released in the past 6 years. Most recently he presided over the largest loss of engineering talent that the company had seen through voluntary and involuntary termination programs. Much of the new strategic direction is riding on his shoulders. \"I'll get right to the point. As you can imagine, I'm under a great deal of pressure to get the new laser systems released to the market,\" he began. \"I can understand,\" Cassandra said. \"I've heard that everything is on track with product development at least. Is that right?\" \"I wish it were that simple,\" Patrick said. \"Developing advanced laser systems is a complex operation. We're relying on our best and brightest engineers to create some of the most innovative applications of advanced laser technology on the market today. If we pull it off as planned, it will be an incredible success for the company. Unfortunately, we can't always predict how long it will take to develop a product. How long it takes to be creative is a volatile challenge that's always present in our division. We also have to balance cycle time with our nancial investments in research and development. We put a lot of pressure on our engineers, and we count on them to deliver.\" Cassandra nodded. \"I do hear that many of them are working nights and weekends. So what brings you to requesting our meeting today?\" \"First let me give you a bit of background. As you know, we have ve engineering teams in this division: laser systems, component systems (which are separated into two teams, new components and enhancements to existing components), satellite technology, and custom design. The laser and satellite teams are relatively new, having only been organized in that way since last year, and you'll recognize that they're the two critical areas in the new direction of the company. The other teams have the same charter that they've had for the past few years.\" Patrick continued. \"Productivity is my main issue. We have very limited budgets and very short delivery windows in which we're expected to produce results for the business. If we don't produce, a competitor will get to the market faster and we'll essentially have lost the battle. Right now we're not doing a very goodjob ofthat.\" \"Tell me more about what you mean by productivity,\" Cassandra said. \"I mean that in general, we're not meeting our commitments to getting our products out. As a result, we're losing market share each time we're late to reaching the point at which our products are generally available. That impacts our sales force, marketing efforts, and the credibility of the engineering team.\" \"What do you think is causing low productivity?\" she asked. \"Well, I think that there are many factors, but the most basic seems to be time management. Obviously, how our engineers spend their time is critical. We need them to be skilled at prioritizing their time to spend it on the most value-adding activities so that the development activities can be completed on time.\" Patrick paused. \"We need them to be self- managing and productive. That's why I called. I'd like to ask for your help in designing a time management and prioritization seminar to address some of the issues that I see among the engineers. You might throw in a little project management as well.\" \"We can certainly consider that,\" Cassandra said. \"Let me ask you a couple of questions to better understand what's happening with your group. What's led you to the conclusion that they can't manage their time well?\" \"Well, I'm obviously nervous about the laser systems team,\" Patrick said, \"so I walk downstairs pretty frequently to get an update and to see how things are going. Almost every time I'm down there I see people working, but the results just don't seem to be there.\" \"What have you done so far?\" she asked. \"I prefer to let my managers do the managing. I don't like to bypass them. And they know that the entire company is waiting for the product to be ready. But I have to be fair here. It's not everyone, it's mostly Todd's group.\" \"Who is Todd?\" Cassandra asked. \"Todd Lyman is the manager of the laser systems engineering group. He joined the company last year at this time, right after we reorganized the engineering group after the layoffs,\" Patrick said. \"We brought him in from the outside to lead the development of the new laser systems. We were lucky to recruit him, since he has extensive background in laser