In the year 1996, Ted Happold, the creator of the engineering services company Buro Happold passed away and Padraic Kelly became the business's new Managing Director (MD). One of his first initiatives was "Objective for Growth" which was intended to help the company grow beyond its current size where it was constrained by a construction of having each of the company's founding partners responsible for a group of 25-30 engineers. This initiative was quite successful but the business then found itself at all levels of the organization with a deficiency of leadership abilities to handle a business of a much larger size, growing by a factor of 10 over 10 years. The lack of direction abilities was understood by customers who gave the company feedback on this.
The initial two programs were: (1) the Occupation Leader Program, targeted for senior engineers and designed to help them be more effective in working with customers, and (2) the Project Leader Program, targeted for project leaders and designed to assist them develop the "softer" management skills to complement their technical ones. A distinctive part of Archimedes Academy is that the cohorts who attended them developed and provided these first programs. Rather than associate using a university to come up with an accredited program, the business determined it had be better off developing the program itself, together with the aid of an outside consultant who had done something similar at his previous employer, as a way to ensure the programs were special enough to Buro Happold's demands and applicable to the firm's tradition. The initial two programs were a big success and the training offerings expanded under the Archimedes Banner. The case ends using a client, a Middle Eastern city authority, requesting Buro Happold Consulting, a brand new unit created by Padraid Kelly after stepping down as MD in 2006, asking the company to develop a training program in their opinion. This request raises the inquiry of whether this internal training ability should become the basis of an outside service offering.
PUBLICATION DATE: June 04, 2012 PRODUCT #: 412123-PDF-ENG
This is just an excerpt. This case is about ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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