Students will apply materials referenced in the first half of the course to a contemporary organizational failure present in either an organization they belong to or a prominent organization within their present area of residence.

Scope, Background: You are a skilled tactician for an organizational pathology consulting firm and have been called to investigate whatever failure you’ve identified by the relevant shot-callers of your organization. The organization asks you to analyze:

• what went wrong
• at what point it started to go wrong
• who was responsible and
• what they might be able to do in the future to improve or avoid similar failure

Format: Write an executive summary memo to the otherwise extensive report you would have written, addressed to the ultimate decision makers you’ve identified, answering the questions they’ve posed.

No title page necessary. In-text citations and sources page as necessary if you are using sources. 12 pt font, TNR. 750 words max.

Eligible O’Hara ‘Categories’: Normal Accident, Structural Failure, Oversight Failure

I expect to see:

• Summary of organizational failure (then move on!)
• Answers to questions posed
• Applicable O’Hara ‘category of failure’ identified and synthesis presented with org. failure
• Professional prescription for future avoidance of similar failure

Upload with the filename firstletterlastname_midterm under the Upload All Files In Here folder.