Nature Unlimited, a company that produces a nature-film series, has decided to take a new approach to
Question:
Nature Unlimited, a company that produces a nature-film series, has decided to take a new approach to a big new project. Maria, the producer; Franco, the production department manager; and Roxanne, the facility director, have just concluded a long project-planning meeting with a clearly laid out budget and schedule.
A new series of checkpoints on the schedule, they hope, will keep them on track with time and expenses, and two additional project-review sessions will keep the corporate office in the loop with funding approvals. Maria gets to work on the project. She tells Franco that she’d like to bring in top scripting talent, because a good script almost guarantees an easy production. “Go ahead, Maria,” Franco agrees. “You know the business.”
Happily for Maria, Corporate loves the script and reemphasizes the importance of the video having the right “look” to attract buyers. Maria and Franco track down Roxanne in the hallway. “Roxanne,” they say, “if Corporate likes this one, you know they’ll come back to us to fund the rest of the series. Gotta pour on what it takes.”
Preproduction pressures put Maria into overdrive searching for perfect scenic locations and just the right narration talent. “Franco,” she gushes, “it’s just what Corporate’s looking for. They’re gonna eat up this video.” She’s right: Corporate adores the location stills and the casting tapes. Of course, getting the production equipment, the facilities for the narrators and crew, and meals to the shoot locations proves pretty expensive, but “it’s what Corporate wants,” Maria and Franco decide.
Corporate goes crazy for the rough-cut takes and chooses some very slick effects for opening titles and transitions. “See?” Maria crows. “We knew they wanted top-drawer work.” At the end of the six weeks, Roxanne calls Maria and Franco into her office. Pointing to a pile of invoices and a print-out from the purchasing department, Roxanne demands, “What happened to our goal of staying within the budget? We’re gonna go broke on this one film!”
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Summarize the “Drifting Goals” theme in this story in two or three sentences!
2. Identify the key variables in the story. (Variables in brackets do not necessarily need to appear in your final causal loop diagram.)
The explicit goal was to __________________________.
At several points in the production process, Maria and Franco could have noticed a _____________ between the goal and ________________________________.
Ideally, they would have ___________________________ to stay in line with the goal. However, they were motivated by pressure to ______________________ and _______________ the original goal.
[As a result, ______________________ got higher and higher while Corporate was increasingly _____________________.]
3. Graph what happens over time to the original goal and to the activity it was supposed to control.
4. Fill in the blank systems archetype template below with the key variables from the story.
Label each arrow with an “s” or an “o,” and add any important delays.
Basic Business Statistics Concepts And Applications
ISBN: 9780132168380
12th Edition
Authors: Mark L. Berenson, David M. Levine, Timothy C. Krehbiel