OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Choosing an Organization Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Identify an organization and situation you want to study over the remainder of the course.
2. Describe the organization and situation.

1) Describe your organization.

The organization I will be discussing is a mining facility that is currently at the end of its pilot
testing and starting construction of its commercial facility. I will call the organization ABC Mining (not the
real name) for the remainder of this course. ABC Mining is using a new method of mining copper that
will set new standards for conservation and environmental protection. We have completed 18 months of
successful pilot testing and demonstrated a safe and environmentally friendly way of extracting the
material. ABC Mining is now ready to begin construction of the commercial facility that will be in
production for 20 years. At the end of the 20 years of production we will bring the land back to the way it
was before and it can be used for housing, farming, parks, or back to its natural landscape.

2) Describe how Describe your role in the organization (it can be internal or external).

My role within ABC Mining is project engineer. During the situation I will describe below my role
was plant supervisor. This situation is what propelled me to my current role as project engineer. I have
been with the organization for 5 years and have seen multiple promotions throughout those years. My
role consists of overseeing the planning and execution of the projects that take place on site. I
coordinate with the teams, monitor progress, and face any challenges that come up.

3) Describe the situation.

The situation I will be describing was a smaller project that took place about two years ago. I was
tasked with overseeing the construction and commissioning of a large-scale reverse osmosis system. The
system was being put in place to clean the area that we mined so that we could prove that we were able
to successfully bring the land back to its original state. I came into the project after the engineering was
completed and construction was to begin. However, once I was given the engineer drawings, I found
several errors that needed to be assessed before construction could begin. I sat down with the engineer
and went over the drawings in detail and made corrections where necessary. Once the corrections were
made construction began.

Construction of the system was scheduled for two months, and the programming would be done
by a third-party and would take two weeks. When construction began, we quickly realized the wrong
material was ordered and the delivery time of the material would be about a week. To not waste time
while waiting for material we started building as much as we could. We were able to build parts of the
system and set them aside until the material we were waiting for came in. By the time the material came
in we had a good portion of the system built and we put it together like a puzzle. With management
watching our every move to ensure timely completion, we were able to successfully complete the
project a week ahead of schedule. Leading this project came down to time management. I could have
easily told everyone that nothing could be done without the correct material but instead I made use of
the time and kept the project within schedule. I also could’ve let the engineer correct the drawings on
his own but rather I went over the drawings with him in order to ensure the drawings were correct.