PDQ's sales and management team has just completed a sensing study and learned that many of their customers like the idea of this newly proposed venture; however, they would prefer a hybrid approach to ordering the customized frozen pizza items (e.g., customer-defined recipes and company recommendations of pre-selected options "menu creations").

Dee Livery is delighted with this idea and wants to offer some exotic menu options for customers. She pitched the proposal in an upcoming meeting and received approval from her leadership team. She heard about agile methods and decided that it was a perfect solution for this initiative. She created a roadmap to develop six new "menu creations" using six different sprints.

Overall costs were under high scrutiny in the company, so she decided to modify the staffing for the project. The first three sprints were comprised almost entirely of newly hired interns from the store manager trainee program, and the last three sprints consisted of new and existing staffing. After the pilot was completed, the product manager reported varied results with positive and negative experiences. Customer satisfaction surveys revealed that all "menu creations" were colorful and aesthetically appealing. However, some of the creations worked well, and others were challenged or plain disappointing.

The team conducted a debriefing and lessons learned from the project and discovered that individual customer data indicated that some items tasted strange together. Some questioned the food quality and shelf-life durability. Some said things didn't cook evenly, and others thought the combination was poorly made. The scrum manager shared that the first three sprints had finished quickly and ahead of schedule; the last three sprints were on time, with lower velocity.

Shortly after the pilot was completed (about 30 days), the company received a call from a local lawyer indicating that their client got food poisoning from PDQ's new product. The next day, an inspector from the FDA showed up and requested a copy of PDQ's policy and procedures for food preparation, storage, and delivery.

Corporate leadership was immediately informed of the pilot's completion and the favorable responses from some customers. The Marketing VP was so pleased that they decided to keep the momentum going and create an annual competition amongst customers for the best "menu creation" to be included in the standard company's catalog of pizza offerings.

Question:

1. What happened, and what could be done to improve upon this situation?

2. Should the company proceed with this competition, and where should it reside within their portfolio structure (Manufacturing, Sales and Marketing, Research and Design, Operations, etc.)?

3. How does the company respond to this scenario, and what should they do in the future to avoid such dilemmas?