ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No.

A DAY AT SEAGRAVES – Dr. David Pope, P.E.

Case 1

Spring 2017
The clock flashed 3:20 a.m. when the alarm finally stopped. Dr. David Pope rolled out of bed in the
guestroom (where he always slept when there was a scheduled early morning call to keep from waking
his wife Kathy) and stumbled to the shower. Cold water seemed to be the fastest way to remove the
brain fog before the global monthly performance conference call. “I’ll have my payback” he chuckled, as
next month he would facilitate the discussion and schedule the one-hour meeting at 1:00 p.m. CST –
that would have his friend Akio in Tokyo up even earlier.

As the director of engineering for the Seagraves Corporation, Dr. David Pope often found himself having
to balance timing and priorities throughout the day. At 3:45 a.m. he connected his laptop into the

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corporate network early, just in case there were more IT issues; it seemed as if there was always a bug or

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glitch that wasted the 1st 15 minutes of most of these remote meetings. The meeting lasted 25 minutes

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longer than scheduled, primarily due to review of long-range plans that would form part of the CEO’s
upcoming quarterly stock analyst review. David didn’t feel significantly exposed from an engineering

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perspective, but made a note to ask his Technology Manager, Jeff Edwards, about competitor activities in
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a couple of key areas. If needed, he would include suitable comments in the “briefing papers” which
would go to his boss, Sam Fannin - Vice President of Production, who reported to the CEO. David
followed a “no surprises” management approach; he didn’t like to be surprised by his direct reports,
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and didn’t like for his manager to be surprised by (usually) bad news.
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Over breakfast, David was pleasantly surprised to see only 27 emails had arrived over the night, with
none flagged as Confidential or Important. That meant that Rita Jones, David’s administrative assistant,
would have them sorted for his action by the time he arrived in the office. Today’s schedule didn’t look
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too bad, either, from a quick review of his Blackberry Outlook calendar. A project review, a Human
Resourcing meeting about mandatory training, and a regularly scheduled “one-on-one” discussion with
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Tom Smith, his Development Manager. Passing Kathy in the hall heading to the car, David handed her a
cup of morning coffee, as he sipped his third. “Honey, don’t forget Sarah’s soccer practice tonight. She
loves it when you come and watch part of practice”. Ahhh, he thought, I knew I forgot to add something
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to my calendar from yesterday. Maybe today would have enough time to let him spend an hour in the
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company’s fitness center after lunch. “I need to work on that some more”, he thought as he drove the 25
minutes to the office. Dr. Gould had reminded him just last month that losing the 15 pounds he had
gained since taking the Director of Engineering position last year would probably keep him from needing
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medication in the future.

Combined thoughts of unsuccessful attempts to lose weight, desire to spend more time with his family,
and the overturned 18-wheeler blocking all traffic on the road ensured that David Pope arrived at his
parking spot at 8:10 A.M. in a foul mood. A glance at his cell phone indicated he had missed two phone
calls from George Jamison, the head of plant engineering. George usually doesn’t call early unless there’s

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

a problem, he thought, “I’d better call him back when I get to my office”. Walking by Rita’s desk on the
way into his office, she spoke into the phone and said “Hold on, George, he’s just walked in. Let me put
you on hold”. Rita quickly reviewed David’s daily calendar with him, reminding him of the three
scheduled meetings and handing him the pre-reading material for the training discussion later in the day.
She also said that most of the 27 overnight emails (plus 17 more since this morning) were either for his
information or were able for her to address, with the 8 requiring his input moved to the “Action Today”
email folder. “But”, she said, “You really need to talk to George”.

David moved to his desk and picked up the phone. “What’s up, George?” “Dave”, George said “we had a
small explosion and fire at the North Plant early this morning. No one was hurt, but the air conditioner
checkout line is seriously damaged. I’ve already initiated an accident investigation review and it’s too
early to tell for sure, but this may have been caused by a fuel gas line fitting that wasn’t seated
correctly”. “I understand”, David replied, “thank goodness no one was hurt. We can repair and replace
equipment, but we’ve got to protect our employees. Do you have everything you need to stabilize the
situation?”. George replied that all the emergency shut-downs worked exactly as they should have, and

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that the accident review should be completed quickly. “Look”, David said, “any idea about when the line

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will be back up?”. All completed product had to pass through the checkout line and, until the line was

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repaired the plant was completely idle. “Looks like they'll be out at least a couple of weeks unless I can

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work my people overtime," reported Jamison. After some discussion, Pope told Jamison to work as much
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overtime as necessary to get the line going again. David asked George “Can you get me a quick email
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with a summary of the incident and recovery plan by noon today? I need to bounce this upstairs for
info”. Jamison promised to provide Pope a summary by noon.
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“Rita!”, David shouted “hold my calls. I’ve got to take care of something”. He crafted a short email
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detailing the accident, implications, and preliminary recovery plan and sent it to Sam, with copies to the
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Legal, Safety, and Regulatory managers. In David’s experience, situations like this required complete
transparency within the organization.

Rita knocked discretely on his door. “David, it’s 9:45 and Dr. John Bush (the director of Seagraves
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research and development) called. You may want to call him back before your 11:00 project review.”
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Pope thanked Rita, and dialed Bush’s number.

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BUSH: Thanks for returning my call so promptly, David. I was talking to Pat Wright at a cocktail
party last night, and he told me that there is going to be trouble at the new products committee
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meeting tomorrow morning. Seems Sherry Smith has decided that our waste treatment plant is
inadequate to handle the additional load from the degreasers needed for the new refrigerator
line. If this project gets tied up in environmental litigation there’s no way to predict how long
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this will take to clear up. I knew we'd have nothing but trouble putting a consumer advocate on
the committee.

POPE: What is the basis for her objections? (Pope had been a supporter of including a
community stakeholder on the committee, and had convinced his manager Sam to support the
concept).

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

BUSH: It seems she read an article about river pollution and went down and talked to one of the
operators at the treatment plant.

POPE: Okay, John, don't worry. I'll bring a copy of that study Jamison's people did. The plant
operators would not have been included in the planned treatment improvements that will be
funded as part of the project as well. That ought to satisfy everyone's concerns. Feel free to call
on me at some appropriate point in your presentation, and I'll say a few words in this regard.

BUSH: Great. I'm sure glad I went to that party and ran into Wright. That would have been a
nasty shock to have gotten hit cold.

As he hangs up, Rita enters and reminds Pope of his upcoming 11 o'clock appointment to review a
redesign project for electrical switchgear implementation.

RITA: I went ahead and printed the ACTION TODAY emails for you. Nothing much except a
budget request from industrial engineering and a research proposal from materials engineering.

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Oh, yes, Joe Land stopped by and wants to see you when you're free. He said it was something

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to do with that new engineer he wants to hire. Also, while you were talking to Dr. Bush, George

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Wallace called. Oh, I almost forgot; the flight you wanted to Washington was booked, so I put

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you on the 4 P. M. flight on the tenth.
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Pope quickly went through the mail. He signed without reading the proposal from the materials group to
a government agency; dictated on his recorder a negative reply to an invitation to speak to a regional
meeting of ASPE, on the excuse that he would be out of town; noted on his appointment calendar the
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date of the United Way (of which he was a member) board meeting; and read the request from the
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Industrial Engineering Department for a new computer infrastructure server and made some notes
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requesting clarification a further justification for why they could not use existing IT resources. “We’ve
just got to keep an eye on these computing costs”, he muttered. The higher than expected costs of the
IPAD implementation would require some belt-tightening to stay within his departmental budget.
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It was now 10:15; he called Rita in and asked: "Who is this meeting at 11 o'clock with?". She reminded
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him that Bob Stanbery (Electrical Engineering Team Leader) and Grant Warnecke (Electrical Engineer)
had scheduled a 30 minute review at David’s request. “Oh, yes. Now I remember”, he replied. David liked
to periodically spend time with promising staff in his organization, and both Bob and Grant were
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demonstrating positive performance and delivery in their current jobs. David also told Rita to call Joe
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Land and tell him to come on up. Picking up the phone, he returns the call of George Wallace, the
general sales manager. Wallace's secretary says he is out of the office but will call back. As Pope hangs
up, Joe Land enters his office. For the next 30 minutes they discuss the pros and cons of two applicants
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who have been interviewed for a senior engineer's job. They finally agree on one of the applicants, and
Pope tells Land to get together with personnel on the salary to be offered but to check with him first
before the letter of offer is sent.

At 11:00, Bob and Grant arrive and spend 30 minutes reviewing detailed design specifications for a
switchgear modification. David was impressed at the way Bob would defer to Grant to answer detailed

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

questions, and would only interject when there was a particular point or detail which might need
additional clarification or could impact other pieces of equipment. Wryly, David also realized that Bob
was pretty good in deflecting a couple of his questions which were more specific than Grant had planned
for, offering to address them in a follow-up email. David found it refreshing to find someone who was
not afraid to say “I don’t know, but I will find out and get back to you”. He did miss technical engineering
work more than he usually admitted, and reviews of quality work like this typically reminded him of it.
He added a positive note in the Human Resource database for each, with an automatic reminder for his
notification when vacant positions were available for their promotion.

As Bob and Grant leave, his secretary buzzes Pope for a phone call. It is George Wallace, and they decide
to meet in a quiet corner of the company cafeteria for lunch. During lunch, Wallace complains that
customer service engineering is not being responsive to his field representatives. He claims that it is
sometimes a week before engineering comes back with an answer to customer complaints. Pope asks
Wallace to send him a few specific documented instances and promises to look into it. He then tells
Wallace about his phone call from John Bush and asks for strong support from sales in the new product

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committee meeting the next day. Wallace assures Pope that sales wants the new refrigerator line as

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much as anyone and that R&D and engineering can count on his strong support. It is 12:45 pm before he

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returns towards the office.

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On his way, Pope notices one of his engineers is playing a computer game at their desk. He makes a point
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to stop, say hello, and watch him try to quickly (and unsuccessfully) minimize the screen. As he finishes
the walk back to the office, he dictates a note in his Blackberry to remind the department heads at the
Friday staff meeting to be sure their people are not misusing company computing resources. He also
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dictates a note for Rita to schedule a meeting with the Division Information Technology manager – “We
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probably need to be crystal clear about our corporate Internet usage policy as well”. As he gets to his
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office, the Human Resource director and Glen Sanford are waiting for him. "Well, Glen, what are you
going to do with all your free time after you retire?" queries Pope. After some discussion of Sanford's
farming plans, he is presented with a plaque commemorating his 30 years of service as an Engineering
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Technician with the organization.

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Pope is running about 15 minutes late for his 1:00 Human Resource training meeting. For the next 45
minutes, he is presented the proposed Diversity and Inclusiveness training plan for next year, and is
primarily interested in the corporate expectations for his organization. Participation in this will be
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mandatory for all employees, and Pope is getting an advance look at the presentation for next week’s
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employee communication session. As they leave his office, David asks Rita to follow up with them to be
sure there are no changes prior to next week’s meeting.

Ahh, thinks Pope, now I can grab my gym bag and hit the treadmill for an hour before my 3:30 “one-on-
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one” with Tom Smith.

“Hold a minute, Susan”, says Rita. “Dr. Pope, Susan Kho, Sam Fannin’s admin, is calling to see if you can
fill in for him at a meeting to discuss next year's budget in the president’s office. Sam’s meeting to
finalize the Argentinian contract is going longer than expected”. “Got it covered” said David, “Call Tom

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

and tell him I’ll call to come up to my office whenever this meeting is over” as he grabbed his IPAD and
headed to the meeting a few minutes late.

As he walks toward the executive suite, he is stopped in the hall by Oscar Ford, the head of quality
control; Oscar was forwarded Pope’s morning email regarding the plant explosion and fire. Ford explains
that he would like to redesign the line’s final inspection station while it was down for repair, but needed
Pope’s approval for use of two industrial engineers full time for a week from Bill Binford’s team (head of
industrial engineering) since this was a new project. Pope agreed and made a note to himself to tell the
department heads that they did not need his concurrence on such small projects. "I probably should set
some guidelines," he thought to himself. “It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to revisit our process for
identifying and executing multiple projects during scheduled and unscheduled line downtimes”.

Pope was 15 minutes late, and tried to slip into the back of the room. But, the only available seat was at
the front of the conference room, and Pope received a glare from the Planning Manager, who had been
an unsuccessful candidate for Pope’s Manager of Engineering position. The meeting in the president's

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office lasted until 4:30 P.M. Corporate Planning explained the guidelines and timetable for preparing the
budget requests for next year. Pope was concerned when he saw the target for an overall salary increase

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of only 2% percent for engineering next year, as this was equivalent to the cost of living increase during
the past 12 months. At face value, this would not provide sufficient funds to grant any merit increases

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for next year, even though his organization had achieved all performance goals including no vocational
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injuries. He would need to follow up with the president and comptroller to gain additional information
about the background for this, and used his Blackberry to email a reminder note to Rita to schedule this.
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Upon arriving back at his office, Rita called for Tom Smith to come up, and Pope spent an hour discussing
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mid-year performance reviews of Tom’s staff. Everyone within Tom’s organization enjoyed his approach
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management and leadership, and his direct reports consistently scored him highly on his annual 360
Feedback survey. David, however, found Tom hard to pin down regarding relative performance ranking of
his staff; Tom’s struggled to identify those staff who defined the upper and lower ends of the
performance spectrum. As a result, Pope felt there were probably some strong candidates for promotion
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who may not have been fully appreciated or even identified. After Tom left, Pope added a note to the
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Human Resources database to flag potential lateral vacancies for future move for Tom, and identify
potential backfills.
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Pope’s cell phone rang – “David”, said Kathy, “would you like for me to bring you a salad to eat at Amy’s
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soccer practice? It’s right on the way”. He had forgotten about practice, and Dr. Gould wasn’t the only
one who felt that David needed to lose a little weight, it seemed.

“I’d appreciate it, Kathy. I was just walking out of the door and hadn’t even thought about dinner, yet”,
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David replied. “What happened to my day?” Pope asked. He slipped the flash drive into his pocket that
Rita had left for him with the monthly department head reports on it. Maybe he could catch up on them
later tonight. Walking to the car, he smiled as he remembered the first day of their last Florida vacation.
How Kathy could never quite convince him she had “accidentally” dropped his Blackberry into the surf.
You know, 10 days without email or cell phone coverage turned out to be a pretty good time after all.

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

References:

1. The five functions of management – page 14

2. The roles of management –(Mintzberg’s list) page 12-13 (interpersonal and decisional)

Case Study Discussion Questions

1. Can you classify each of Dr. Pope's activities as to role or function? To address this question
construct a time log of the actions/activities that Pope was involved in and then comment on the
role or the function involved.

2. How much of David Pope’s time expenditure (an estimate will suffice) was dictated or controlled by
others? Explain.

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3. Was Dr. Pope able to work on items that he wanted or needed to work on? Comment on this

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situation depending upon how you answer the question.

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4. How many meetings was Dr. Pope involved in? Do you feel the meetings were important?

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Productive? Wasted time? Comment!

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5. What impact does technology make on Dr. Pope’s day?
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6. What is your impression of how Dr. Pope treats those who work for him?
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7. What suggestions could you make Dr. Pope’s time to be more effectively utilized?
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Use the template provided below to type in MS Word the team responses.
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Use the template that follows to guide your team on responding. When finished, carefully edit your
responses and bring one copy per team to the assigned class period for turn in. This is a team effort so
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self-organize and make sure all contribute.

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Due date: Feb 1 at beginning of class

Retain your word document file in case it is requested!

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Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

ISEN 442
Case Problem No. 1

A DAY AT SEAGRAVES WITH DR. POPE

Team Number ____

Submitted by:
Names Signatures

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________________________ ______________________

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________________________ ______________________

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________________________ ______________________

________________________ ______________________
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Date: ______
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Directions: Using Word, respond to the questions on the next page. You can use this document
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template to type in your responses. Make two copies of your report: bring both to class and be
prepared to hand in a copy during the first 5 minutes of class.

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
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 ISEN 442 – Seagraves Case Study No. 1

Case Study Discussion Questions

1. Can you classify each of Dr. Pope's activities as to role function?

2. How much of David Pope’s time expenditure (an estimate will suffice) was
dictated or controlled by others? Explain.

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3. Was Dr. Pope able to work on items that he wanted or needed to work on?

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Comment on this situation depending upon how you answer the question.

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4. How many meetings was Dr. Pope involved in? Do you feel the meetings were
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important? Productive? Wasted time? Comment!

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5. What impact does technology make on Dr. Pope’s day?

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6. What is your impression of how Dr. Pope treats those who work for him?
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7. What suggestions could you make for Dr. Pope’s time to be more effectively
utilized?

Revised from Shannon, R. E., Engineering Management. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1980 p 32 - 35
This study source was downloaded by 100000834812044 from CourseHero.com on 10-19-2021 03:41:53 GMT -05:00

https://www.coursehero.com/file/19667860/Case-Study-1-Seagraves-1/
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