OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA- Starting Fashion on First at ASU

CONFIDENTIAL PLEASE

1) Name and describe your organization.

I don’t have much formal project management or organizational experience yet, so I

chose to use my experiences with starting a club at ASU called Fashion on First. My
specific role is co-founder and an executive officer. I have two situations and some
context I want to discuss. Towards the end of my junior year here at ASU, myself and
another student, Shelby, in the Fashion program decided we really wanted to start a club
on the downtown campus. Within the fashion program we have multiple student
magazines and one Tempe based club, but we were lacking a general fashion club. We
felt as though the downtown campus was lacking community and we wanted to create a
space where fashion students can come together, gain new experiences, make
professional connections, and learn more about the industry.

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role).

I have an internal role in the organization as I am one of the co-founders and officers for
the club. However my situations were prior to the club actually being approved so I’m
not exactly sure how my role would specify there. I was part of a very small group of
individuals that worked to start a fashion club here at ASU. I am an officer for the club
and worked closely with our other officer and advisors.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think the will help the reader
understand the most important elements of the situation. (This will require
selectivity: part of the art of case writing is separating the essential facts from the
mass of information that might be included).

Shelby and I began working on the paperwork to submit to ASU to get the club approved,
we created a constitution, logo, and had meetings about the club’s vision. The end of the
spring semester was approaching, and we were unable to get into contact with our
advisors to set a time to meet to approve everything prior to submitting it to ASU.
Therefor everything had to be pushed until the fall semester. We had a meeting in person
to discuss our vision once again, but this time our meeting had been double booked with
another meeting our advisor was having. We gathered in the conference room, and she
attempted to hold the meetings simultaneously, although they were very different topics
of discussion; one meeting was with other staff members and then there was Shelby and I
at the other end of the table. We felt nervous and unsure about how to proceed. This was
1
 a challenging position to be put in, as we didn’t feel valued and didn’t make any
breakthroughs that we were hoping for.

Note: I’m struggling here fitting a detailed description into five sentences, I don’t
feel it’s possible to provide a meeting transcript in five sentences…? I will also be
attaching more context and information about the situation if you would like to
refer to it. I know it goes against the assignment details but I feel it is necessary to
get my point across. I also don’t have a source since it was personal experience. Not
sure if I’m overthinking this assignment or doing it completely wrong, so sorry!!!

I don’t have much formal project management or organizational experience yet, so I

chose to use my experiences with starting a club at ASU called Fashion on First. My specific role
is co-founder and an executive officer. I have two situations and some context I want to discuss.
Towards the end of my junior year here at ASU, myself and another student, Shelby, in the
Fashion program decided we really wanted to start a club on the downtown campus. Within the
fashion program we have multiple student magazines and one Tempe based club, but we were
lacking a general fashion club. We felt as though the downtown campus was lacking community
and we wanted to create a space where fashion students can come together, gain new
experiences, make professional connections, and learn more about the industry.

Shelby and I talked to a few different instructors at ASU and they all seemed interested,
one even pointed us towards reaching out to the head of the fashion department. We soon found
out that the program director had been wanting a club just like this for quite some time. This is
when things started to feel real and possible, we had a potential advisor for our club! Now it was
time to get the ball rolling, or so we thought. Shelby and I began working on the paperwork to
submit to ASU to get the club approved, we created a constitution, logo, and had meetings about
the club’s vision. Throughout this process there were many times when we had questions and
needed help; this was all new to us. Upon reaching out to our advisor and secondary advisor we
didn’t receive as much support as we had hoped. We understood that at the end of the day it is a
student organization, but we didn’t realize how ‘on our own’ we would be. We didn’t expect our
advisors to have all the answers, but it seemed like that was their expectations for us. After
finishing the paperwork Shelby and I set a meeting to confirm everything and get any final
thoughts and action items out there. This is where our ongoing issue really skyrocketed, the
communication struggle. The end of the spring semester was approaching, and we were unable to
get into contact with our advisors to set a time to meet. Therefor everything had to be pushed
until the fall semester.

2
 The fall semester rolled around, and we got right to work revising the constitution and
contacting our advisors. We had a meeting in person to discuss our vision once again, but this
time our meeting had been double booked with another meeting our advisor was having. We
gathered in the conference room, and she attempted to hold the meetings simultaneously,
although they were very different topics of discussion. One meeting was with other staff
members and then there was Shelby and I at the other end of the table. We felt nervous and
unsure about how to proceed, are we supposed to interrupt their train of thought to ask
questions? Is it even appropriate for us to be here? Should we just ask to reschedule? We ended
up sticking it out but didn’t make any progress in that meeting and didn’t really have any
conversation aside from between the two of us. This was a challenging position to be put in, as
we didn’t feel valued and didn’t make any breakthroughs that we were hoping for. This was
situation one.

The second scenario was a week or two later. After we submitted everything to ASU for
review, we were tasked with completing an officer and advisor training. The training was
completely online and only took about thirty to sixty minutes. Shelby and I completed the
training promptly, as we all received an email with instructions on next steps. However, a week
later we received another email saying not everyone had completed it and we were still waiting
on the advisors.

We had many struggles with communication and delays throughout the process, finally in
the end of September we got approved and held our first meeting! Everything was so worth it,
but the process was very challenging. I chose this scenario because I think that everyone who is a
part of it would see it differently and it was one of the only experiences I could pull from.
Throughout the experience, my patience grew, I became more independent and proactive, and I
realized that sometimes things take longer than expected but we shouldn’t give up. From the very
beginning we should have planned further in advance, set clear communication expectations, and
held ourselves more accountable. I am grateful I was able to learn so much from this experience.