MGMT 8815M Week 10 Implementation Memo Example

Course	MGMT 8815M Managing by Design Theory
Week	Week 10
Paper type	Implementation memo
Length	About 840 words, 5 pages
Format	Memo, APA 7 citations
School	Walden University
Program	PhD in Management
Updated	October 2026

Free sample paper for MGMT 8815M Week 10

Memorandum

To: Deputy Director, Tallis County Department of Human Services

From: Design Project Lead

Date: April 6, 2026

Re: What the whole-household caseworker design requires of the department

Summary

The design assigns each household that receives benefits a single caseworker for food assistance, Medicaid, cash assistance and child care subsidy, in place of the four caseworkers a family now deals with. It was developed over the last eight weeks from interviews with 26 families and 14 staff, and it answers the problem those interviews kept returning to: families repeat the same information to four workers, none of whom compares notes with the others. The department cannot adopt it without five changes. Job classifications must allow one worker to determine eligibility in more than one program; the caseload metric must count households, not cases; the case management system must route by household; supervisors must be cross-trained; and a household-level quality review must replace the four program reviews. The fifth change is the one most likely to be overlooked.

What this page is doingThe summary states the design and its demands in five sentences, so the deputy director can stop reading there and still know what is being asked.

How the Fit Was Tested

Nadler and Tushman (1980) argued that an organization performs well when its parts fit one another: the work, the people, the formal arrangements and the informal ones. A design that changes the work without changing the arrangements around it will be pulled back toward the old way of working. Galbraith (2002) made a similar point with his star model, in which strategy, structure, processes, rewards and people must be aligned. The table below lists what the design requires, set beside how the department is arranged now.

Table 1

Design Requirements Set Against Current Arrangements

Design requirement	Current arrangement	Fit	Office that controls the change
One worker decides eligibility in all four programs	Job classifications confine each eligibility worker to one program	Mismatch	County personnel office, with the state merit system
Workload counted by household	Caseload metric counts cases per program, so one family of four programs counts four times	Mismatch	Department's performance office
Work arrives by household	Case management system routes applications by program code	Mismatch	State information technology office
Supervisors can review all four programs	Each supervisor is trained in one program	Mismatch	Department's training unit
Quality checked per household	Quality control samples cases separately for each program	Mismatch	State quality control unit, under federal sampling rules
Families can reach their worker directly	Phone calls go to a program-specific queue	Partial fit: workers have direct lines but rarely publish them	Department's call center manager

Fit was judged from department policy manuals, the 2025 caseload report, the case management system's routing rules and interviews with two supervisors and the personnel office.

The Mismatches, One by One

Job classifications come first because nothing else can change until they do. Eligibility workers are hired into program-specific titles, and the county personnel office cannot redefine a title without approval from the state merit system. A combined title, perhaps "household benefits specialist," would need a new job description, a new examination and a pay review.

The caseload metric is within the department's control. Counting cases per program makes a worker who serves one family in all four programs appear four times as productive as one who serves four families in one program. Under the design, that worker would appear to have lost three quarters of her caseload overnight. The performance office could add a household count alongside the case count during the pilot.

Routing in the case management system belongs to the state, which runs one system for every county. A household routing flag would need a change request, and the state's queue for such requests is about nine months long. A manual workaround, in which a pilot team's clerk reassigns applications each morning, would serve for a small pilot.

Supervisor training is the cheapest change, but it takes time: about six weeks of cross-training per supervisor, according to the training unit, during which coverage must be found.

Quality review is the hardest. Each program's quality control sample is drawn under federal rules for that program, and errors are counted against the program. A worker handling all four programs would be reviewed four times by four reviewers applying four standards, with no review of whether the household was served well as a whole.

What this page is doingEach mismatch is given its own paragraph naming the change and the office that holds it, so the deputy director can see who must be persuaded.

The Mismatch That Would Defeat the Design

The caseload metric and routing can be worked around in a pilot, and training can be scheduled. The quality review cannot be worked around, and left alone it would defeat the design. Lipsky (2010) showed that frontline workers respond to the measures applied to them by protecting themselves against the errors those measures count. A household worker whose errors in each program are counted separately, against four standards, will soon learn to treat the household as four cases again, because that is how her work is judged. The department should ask the state quality control unit now whether a pilot team can be reviewed at the household level, with the program samples still drawn as federal rules require. Without that agreement, the pilot should not begin.

References

Galbraith, J. R. (2002). Designing organizations: An executive guide to strategy, structure, and process (Rev. ed.). Jossey-Bass.

Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services (30th anniversary expanded ed.). Russell Sage Foundation.

Nadler, D. A., & Tushman, M. L. (1980). A model for diagnosing organizational behavior. Organizational Dynamics, 9(2), 35-51. https://doi.org/10.1016/0090-2616(80)90039-X

What the MGMT 8815M Week 10 instructions ask for

For Week 10, write a memo of four to six pages to a senior leader explaining what your design requires of the organization that would adopt it. Open with a summary that states the design in two sentences and the changes it demands in a few more. Build a fit table with the design's requirements on one side and the organization's current arrangements on the other, covering jobs, measures, systems, training and review. For each mismatch, write a paragraph naming the change required and the office that controls it. Use an organizational design model to structure the table. Close by naming the one mismatch that, left alone, would defeat the design, and say what should happen before any pilot begins.

How the MGMT 8815M Week 10 example is put together

The Tallis County memo states the design and its five required changes in a short summary, noting the 26 family and 14 staff interviews behind it. A section explains the congruence and star models before the table, which rates five rows as mismatches and one as a partial fit, each with its controlling office. Paragraphs then take each mismatch in turn: program-bound job titles needing state approval, a caseload count that would make a household worker look less productive, routing that sits in a state system with a nine-month queue, six weeks of cross-training and four separate quality reviews. The final section argues from Lipsky that program-by-program error counts would pull workers back to treating households as four cases.

MGMT 8815M Week 10 rubric: what earns full marks

Most marks sit with the fit table, where readers confirm that its requirements come from the design and its current arrangements from evidence such as policy manuals. Each mismatch should name a specific change and the office with authority over it, since a change nobody controls cannot be planned. Use of an organizational design model earns credit when it organizes the analysis rather than appearing as a summary. For the summary, the test is whether a deputy director could stop reading there and still know what is asked. The closing judgment matters most of all for the memo's usefulness: it must pick one mismatch and justify why it would defeat the design. Memos that list barriers without owners or treat every mismatch as equal score lower.

MGMT 8815M Week 10 help: mistakes that cost marks

Begin by listing everything your design assumes about the people, measures and systems around it, then check each assumption against how the organization actually works; policy manuals, performance reports and system routing rules are good sources. Find out who controls each arrangement, because many lie outside the unit you are designing for. Write one paragraph per mismatch and keep them parallel. When choosing the mismatch that would defeat the design, ask which one would quietly pull people back to the old way of working even if everything else changed. Keep the memo addressed to one reader. If you need help organizing the table, a tutor can work through it with you, and the Tallis County memo shows the finished format.

Get a MGMT 8815M Week 10 example written to your instructions

The implementation memo prompt, the rubric and the design from earlier weeks are what this draft builds on. A memo mapping design requirements against current structure, measures and roles is delivered in 24 to 48 hours, with the first free. Agency or employer specifics can be generalized; the fit argument survives that.

More MGMT 8815M papers and PhD in Management samples

MGMT 8815M Week 10 questions, answered

Where can I find a free MGMT 8815M Week 10 sample paper?

The Tallis County implementation memo, fit table and all, is laid out in full above.

What design does the MGMT 8815M Week 10 sample implement?

One caseworker per household across food assistance, Medicaid, cash assistance and child care subsidy.

Which models organize the fit table?

Nadler and Tushman's congruence model and Galbraith's star model of organizational design.

Which mismatch would defeat the design?

Quality review that counts a household worker's errors separately in each program under four standards.

Who controls the job classification change?

The county personnel office, with approval needed from the state merit system.