hypothetical case study of a performance issue in an organization- Organizational Behavior Management

You will be completing a final project creating a hypothetical case study  of a performance issue in an organization. The final document should be 8-11 pages, 12 point font, single spaced, and you are encouraged to be creative in how to display the information as if this was a case study that you were going to share with your hypothetical company.

Here are the major sections that will be required for your case study:

1. Executive Summary – Provide a less-than-1-page summary of the (hypothetical) performance management project, as if an executive of the organization only has 2 minutes to read it. This should be written in plain language (no behavioral jargon). Include the purpose of the document, the major points, results, and recommendations. Writing this is best saved for last, but should be included as the stand alone first page of your case report. Feel free to look online for examples of executive summary documents for inspiration.

1. The Problem (1-2 pages, single spaced)

1. Describe the Organization – Include the hypothetical company name, location(s), industry, products/services provided, years in operation, and number of employees. How is the organization performing as a whole? Is there anything unique about it?

2. Pinpoint the Performance Issue – Select a hypothetical performance issue to assess. Pinpoint the behavior associated with the performance, and describe the outputs of that performance. Ensure any pinpoints are specific and pass the “dead person’s test”! Were leaders in the organization using any labels/generalities/states to describe the issue? How did you address that? How did the organization discover the issue?

3. Describe Why It Matters – Why does this performance matter? Describe potential impacts to the business, the staff, the clients/customers, and society as a whole.

4. Why is PM the Appropriate Solution – Describe to the team what Performance Management is (briefly) and describe why behavior science is the best choice for helping resolve this issue.

1. The Assessments (3-4 pages, single spaced, not including the PDC and ABC table)

1. Historical Assessment – Briefly describe the purpose and process of conducting a historical assessment. Describe the organizational documents you would review to influence your interventions. Are there past performance data available, and what does it look like? Are there industry or organizational standards/policies that need to be taken into consideration? Specify at least 3 sources of historical information you would seek out related to the performance.

2. Indirect Assessment 1 – Describe the process you would complete to conduct a Performance Diagnostic checklist, and what the purpose of the tool is. Who would you interview? How many people? Complete the PDC checklist for one hypothetical interview, and provide the completed checklist with your case report.

3. Indirect Assessment 2 – Describe the process of conducting a PICNIC analysis, and what the purpose of the analysis is. Who would you interview? Complete an analysis of the undesired performance and the desired performance, including at least 5 potential consequences for each and their PICNIC™ labels. Include the ABC table with your case study.

1. Direct Assessment – After completing your indirect assessments, what would direct observation of the performance issue look like? Describe how you would collect data on the behavior of interest. Are these fundamental, derived, or some other type of measure? How would you control for reactivity of staff? What Motivating Operations might be impacting staff? Refer back to the course readings.

1. Preference Assessment – Include an assessment of staff preferences for potential reinforcers in your process. How will you conduct the preference assessment for staff? How often? Include a brief example of the tool you will use to assess, and include at least 10 items/experiences in your array.

1. The Solutions (1-2 pages, single spaced)

1. Antecedent Interventions – Describe the current antecedents that you discovered during your assessment. Are they effective? How would you change the existing antecedents, and what antecedents would you add to the environment to help improve performance? Describe at least 3 antecedent intervention suggestions. Refer back to your assessments and readings to justify your selections.

2. Consequence Interventions – Describe the current consequences that you discovered during your assessment. Are they effective? How would you change the existing consequence systems, and what additional consequences would you add to encourage staff performance? Describe at least 3 consequence intervention suggestions. Refer back to your assessments and readings to justify your selections.

3. Selected Interventions – Choose one antecedent and one consequence intervention that you believe will be the most effective, given the results of the assessment. Describe the hypothesized cost and resources required for implementation.

1. The Results (1-2 pages (with graphs), single spaced)

1. Create a hypothetical graph of the performance of an employee, and add 2 phase change lines as if you had chosen to intervene with your antecedent and consequence. Do you think the interventions would work?

2. Create a hypothetical graph of a business result (revenue, productivity, expenses, staff/client satisfaction, etc.) related to the performance, and add the same phase changes. Would business result changes be apparent immediately after staff performance changed?

3. Briefly describe the result of your intervention. Did either of the interventions work? If no, why? If yes, how did the organization benefit from your intervention?

1. Summary (<1 page, single spaced)

Provide a short summary and description of what you learned from your hypothetical project.

To be successful and ace the assignment, ensure that you review the project rubric  and make sure your final product meets the following criteria: 

• Project contains less than 3 grammatical or spelling errors

• Citations are in APA format, and

• are used throughout the document to justify and support the case study.

• No fewer than 10 citations/references from the course plus 

• Other peer-reviewed journals outside of the course are included.

Executive Summary:

• Is less than 1 page,

• written in plain language, and

• contains a summary of purpose, major points, results, and recommendations.

Problem: 

• Includes the description of the organization,

• behavior and output pinpoints that pass “the dead person’s test”,

• why it matters, and

• why PM is the appropriate solution.

Assessment: 

• Includes the purpose and process for all assessments.

• 3 sources of historical information are included for the historical assessment.

PICNIC: 

• ABC table is included and

• includes both desired and undesired behavior for analysis, and

• 5 categorized consequences for each.

Performance Diagnostic Checklist: 

• Completed PDC checklist is provided.

Preference assessment: 

• Preference assessment is included,

• 10 items/experiences are in the array, and

• describes the procedure for conducting the assessment.

Solutions: 

• Current antecedents and consequences are described based on the assessment.

• 3 interventions for each are selected.

• 2 final interventions are included, with the costs and resources required described.

Results: 

• Includes one behavior graph with phase change lines,

• one business result graph, and

• a brief description of the hypothetical result.

Bonus points are available as well!

+5 Bonus: Is formatted in a professional or creative manner AND includes a performance or permanent product checklist in the direct observation assessment section.

or

+3 Bonus: Is formatted in a professional or creative manner OR includes a performance or permanent product checklist in the direct observation assessment section.

Looking for inspiration? Check out a couple of excellent past projects for examples (used with student permission). Such past examples are attached to the instructions. Note: do not replicate these exactly and please ensure that you check your project against the rubric, as the requirements may change. These are just to serve as general examples and should not be plagiarized. Also, do NOT use those examples as  citations.

Things you can find attached to the instructions: 

• The rubric of this project 

• Power points of the class. Please read the powerpoints to fully understand the topics and how to properly write this project 

• The articles that we read in class, which 10 of them need to be cited in this project 

This is also a video that we saw in class and  that you can include as a citation if you want: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Nc8nccPa0