9-1 Project Submission: Organizational Structure and Culture

In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following competency:

  • Evaluate creative and innovative organizational structures.
  • Recommend alternative innovations to solve an internal or market need.
  • Implement creative and innovative processes within an organization.

Scenario
You work as a middle manager for one of the top U.S. producers of luxury and mass-market automobiles and trucks.

The chief technology officer (CTO) of the company from the course scenario has been watching new technology developments that the company could integrate into its vehicles to enhance the usefulness of and access to the data acquired by the many digital sensors that have been integrated into vehicle subsystems over the past 20–30 years. The technology trend of particular interest is the internet of things (IoT)—the interconnection of embedded devices, such as sensors and computers, over the internet. By taking advantage of this trend, the CTO believes the company can seize an opportunity to provide better service and predictive maintenance to its customers, improving customer satisfaction and adding additional revenue streams.

Based on briefings by the CTO, senior management has decided to implement IoT in its product line. Your CTO has asked you to lead a cross-functional team to take this initiative forward. Your first task is to make a recommendation for how the company should approach this business problem. Do you recommend using incremental or discontinuous (that is, slow or fast) innovation? Specifically: