OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA- Choosing an Organization worksheet

Work Sheet Objectives
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Name and describe your organization.

Medtronic is an organization in the medical device industry. It states it uses “innovation

with a purpose.” It supplys many different medical device platforms, from implantable
devices to surgical tools. It was founded in Minneapolis by Earl Bakken, and has become
one of the leaders in its industry. It recently went through an inversion with Covidian
and is now legally headquartered in Ireland, but operations headquarters are still in
Minnesota. Medtronic started due to a power outage that affected all of the patients that
had pace makers plugged in and could not run during the outage. Earl saw an
opportunity to battery power the devices so that they could treat the patients not being
connected to a wall plug. (Medtronic.com)

2) Describe your role in the organization (it can be an internal or external role.)
I am a technician in the battery department at Medtroinc and have been with the company
for 25 years. My department builds many different models of battery specifically for
Medtronic devices. I have a wide range of responsibilities ranging from equipment
support, to calibrated device management, to doing equipment and or tool qualifications.
My situation happened when I was in the team lead role. This role entailed the
responsibility of ensuring that the assembly line reach our goal for daily numbers. I was
in charge of ensuring that we had the appropriate people doing the appropriate jobs at the
appropriate times. It also entailed ensuring that we had the materials needed to do the
job. The assemblers reported to me and I reported to the supervisor. The supervisor and
I worked as a team to make sure that we were leading a winning team.

3) Describe the situation, including information you think that 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).

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 My situation revolves around when I was a team lead for one of the production lines. I
had some say in whoe my line workers were. The supervisore had ultimate say but I was
allotted a lot of input into the decisions. I ahd a situation that I was told I had to give one
operator to another line. We had a good group of 8 people with one that was a lot slower
at the processes. I was told the other line needed a solid person so I was not allowed to
give that one slower operator to them. So the first decision was pretty easy that I would
give them one of the newest additions to my line. I then had to decide between the two.
Both were very punctual and had both learned about the same amount of the processes at
the same speed and had equal quality of their work. My decision ended up coming down
to the social make up of the group. One of the two connected a lot more with two strong
personalities on the line, and at times those two could make me feel as if they were
strongholding me into things. I decided that since I had the opportunity I could not let
them become a trio. So I gave that operator to the other line. It was a tough decision and
had so many inputs into why I made the decision I did, it also could have come with
multiple different outcomes.

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 References:
https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/index.html