Case Study:
Tasty Farms processes, packages and wholesales organic dips and sauces for the upscale consumer market. The company's products are marketed through grocery chains such as Whole Foods, and are offered online through gourmet food companies. You are an outside consultant who has been asked by the Director of Human Resources to conduct a preliminary diagnosis of issues associated with the Executive Team's concerns about lagging employee productivity in the Packing and Shipping department. The company has missed an important shipping deadline for a key client, and has seen an increase in the number of customer complaints about inaccurate or incomplete shipments.
Imagine that, as an outside consultant, you will be interviewing four members of the Tasty Farms Executive Team - the President of Tasty Farms, the Director of Product Development and Food Processing, the Director of Marketing and Sales, and the Director of Customer Fulfillment and Distribution.
Create a paper of at least 3 pages, outline the services you plan to provide to the company (use the Elements of an Effective Proposal diagram as a guide), identifying the key objectives you have established for the interview process. Explain how you plan to structure the interview process and how your approach will begin to diagnose the nature of the problems in the Packing and Shipping department, including the parameters and expectations of your work as a consultant.
Prepare an interview guide, listing the preliminary questions you plan to ask each interview participant, and provide examples of follow-up questions you would ask based on the responses you might receive to your preliminary questions. The interview guide may be structured in numbered or bulleted format in the body of your paper.