OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

My role is internal, I am a provider success represensitive. I handle the billing for

members. I also price services for the providers. My role as all the others in the company
is primarily work from home, with minimal in office time. At most I am in the office 1 to
2 times a month. The communication was the problem entering this company, both girls I
work with were very busy and it was hard to set time for training as well as the delay in
gaining access I needed to do my job. There was very little policies and procedures in
place for me to go by.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

I think for this organization there was a lot of “new” team members. Pre pandemic the
manager only had one person to navigate on the team. It was not until after the start of
covid and everyone was sent home to work that this specific department started hiring
new people. The current director of my department and one other person working in
billing. When I came on board there was no formal training, no policies and procedures
to review.

Which came with lack of communication. When I would train for a day with one person
they would teach me to do things their way then the next day a different person would
train me differently. The communication was difficult as everything was done remotely,
there would be delays in updates to the team. You would have to wait to have a group
meeting every two weeks. It was a very difficult situation to work through and I think it
was because this was such a new company. To many people where put under one person,
and then another person had to much on their plate and where to far behind to help others.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

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 If I could structure an alternative course of action it would have started with policies and
procedures. As I worked through Items I would create a new document for training and
referencing. This would clear a lot of confusion up from the start and give a grounds for
training all new employees. Next I would set up weekly team meetings and task agenda
times. From the start once there is multiple people on the team I would create a schedule
that has each persons tasks for that week so everyone knew who was training the new
person and what day and time, also who handles which system or project.

For the communication standard, I would make it known up front that group messaging is
the best method so questions can be answered by anyone on the team. And there is to be
same treatment for all people. I would request feed back from all team members on how
the processes are going, if they think things need to be updated or changed and how to
accomplish that. I would recommend that a person from each department sets in on a
monthly meeting for conversations to get started on how things could flow better or if the
way we do something does not make sense to them.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

Based on the learnings of the textbook a good solid structure frame can always use an
update. It is important that yes if changes need to be made that they are done
appropriately in a manner that will not off set the balance of the work that is being done
and the people who are doing that job. "When the time for restructuring comes, managers
need to take account of tensions specific to each structural configuration" (Bolman).
When change comes it is important to make sure that everyone on the team is made
aware and to take it one step at a time instead of overloading the team.

Giving the types of changes I think it is safe to say that most team members are okay with
the changes that make their work better and or easier. If in my situation making vast
changes to communication among team members would reduce the tension they have
with one another, and it created a more calming environment I would see that as a win
win in our department.

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 Reference

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing  organizations: Artistry, choice, and

leadership (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass