| Course | GB740 Organizational Development |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 7 |
| Paper type | Intervention proposal |
| Length | About 1,010 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB740 Unit 7
Changing the Rules, Not the People: A Unit 7 Intervention Proposal for a Civil Engineering Firm
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB740: Organizational Development
Unit 7 Intervention Proposal
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Tallis Engineering, its offices and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
To the Chief Operating Officer
This proposal sets out four changes to how Tallis organizes and credits multi-office work, the evidence each responds to and the order in which offices would adopt them. It is written for you to take to the executive team.
The Diagnosis in Two Sentences
Projects staffed from more than one office fade almost three times as much as single-office projects, a median of 8.9 points against 3.2. The work now crosses office lines, but the formal organization still rewards each office for keeping its staff busy on its own projects, so the coordination that multi-office work requires is unpaid, unplanned and negotiated as a favor.
In the terms Nadler and Tushman (1980) use, the tasks have outgrown the formal arrangements built to support them. Galbraith (1974) saw two broad answers when work becomes more interdependent: cut the amount of information that has to pass between units, or build ways to carry more of it, such as lateral relations and liaison roles. Tallis has done neither. The four interventions below add coordination capacity and change what the formal organization rewards.
Finding to Intervention
Each finding from Unit 5 leads to one intervention. Cummings and Worley (2019) sort interventions into four families, ranging from work on how people interact to strategic change, and each change below is placed in its family, since three of the four are technostructural or human resource changes rather than the human process work an academy would represent.
Shared margin credit answers the office leaders' view of lending as a loss (Finding 5). On projects above $250,000 in fee, the project's margin will be credited to each office in proportion to the hours its staff contributed, rather than wholly to the home office. An office that lends an engineer for a third of a project's hours receives a third of its margin. This is a human resource management intervention, because it changes the basis of office leaders' bonuses.
A resourcing forum answers the favor trading in staffing calls (Finding 4). A weekly forum, chaired by the director of project delivery, will replace the staffing calls. Requests for staff from another office will be logged with the skills needed, the hours and the start date. The forum decides requests the offices cannot settle between themselves, and its decisions bind office leaders. Any request still open on the tenth day goes on a list the executive team sees. This is a technostructural intervention.
A lower utilization target answers the unbilled coordination hours (Finding 2). The project manager utilization target will fall from 82 to 68 percent. Proposals for multi-office projects will include a coordination budget, priced into the fee, so that the time project managers spend on coordination is planned and, where clients agree, billed. This is a human resource management intervention.
A project manager council answers the role ambiguity in acquired offices (Finding 3). Twelve project managers, one from each office, will meet monthly to review how the new rules work in practice and to propose revisions to the forum's procedures and the coordination budget. The council gives the people who carry the misfit a formal voice in fixing it. This is a human process intervention, the only one of the four.
What Happens to the Academy
The academy is not abandoned. The diagnosis found that skills were not the main cause of fade, but interviews did show that project managers promoted from technical roles had little preparation for budgeting multi-office work. The academy will therefore survive as one module, on estimating and managing coordination budgets, taught to every project manager in the first year. It supports the other changes rather than substituting for them.
The academy stays, but as a module that teaches people to work within the new rules, not as the remedy that would have left the old rules in place.
The Rollout
The twelve offices will adopt the changes in three waves of four, each wave six months apart. Within each wave, all four interventions start together, since shared credit without a forum would leave offices with incentives but no process, and a forum without shared credit would leave them with a process but no reason to use it. Offices will be grouped by size, and the order within each size group will be set by lottery, so that the evaluation in Unit 9 can compare offices that have changed with those that have not yet.
The five acquired offices with earnout terms will join in the last wave. Their principals' payments depend on office profit through 2027, and shared credit would change how that profit is measured. Placing them last gives the executive team time to decide how earnout calculations will be adjusted before those offices adopt the new rules.
Risks
Four risks are recorded here, each with a response. Office leaders at the largest offices may lose bonus under shared credit, and the stakeholder analysis in Unit 8 will estimate how much. The forum could become a bottleneck if every request is escalated, which the ten-day rule and the expectation that offices settle most requests themselves are meant to prevent. Clients may refuse coordination budgets, in which case the hours will be planned but absorbed, and the firm will learn how much coordination costs. And the chief executive may see the proposal as a rejection of his academy; the module keeps his priority in the plan, and the chief operating officer will brief him before the executive team sees it.
What the Proposal Asks For
Approval of the four changes, a coordinator's time for the forum at about half a position, a revision of the office leaders' bonus plan for board approval and a budget for the academy module. No new hiring of project managers is required.
References
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2019). Organization development and change (11th ed.). Cengage.
Galbraith, J. R. (1974). Organization design: An information processing view. Interfaces, 4(3), 28-36. https://doi.org/10.1287/inte.4.3.28
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
GB740 Unit 7 instructions, in plain terms
The seventh GB740 assignment asks you to propose interventions that follow from your diagnosis. Restate the diagnosis briefly, in a sentence or two the sponsor could repeat. Link each intervention to a specific finding, and classify it using a recognized typology so the reader sees what level of the organization it works on. Describe each intervention concretely: who does what, how often and under what rules. Explain what happens to any remedy the client proposed before the diagnosis. Set out a rollout plan with its sequence and the reasons for it. List the risks you foresee and give each a planned response. State what resources the proposal requires. About ten pages, written to the sponsor, with a finding to intervention table, a schedule and a risk register is a common format.
How this GB740 Unit 7 example is built
The proposal is addressed to the chief operating officer and restates the diagnosis in two sentences using the 8.9 and 3.2 point figures. Nadler and Tushman and Galbraith explain the misfit and why coordination capacity is the remedy. Four labeled paragraphs link findings to interventions and give each its Cummings and Worley family. A section explains how the academy becomes a module on coordination budgets, with the highlighted sentence on its new role. The rollout section explains why all four changes start together in each office and why the earnout offices join last. Four risks are recorded with responses, including the chief executive's reaction, and the proposal closes with its resource request.
Reading the GB740 Unit 7 grading rubric
GB740 instructors award points on the intervention proposal for traceability from diagnosis to action. Each intervention should answer a named finding, and changes with no finding behind them lose credit. Classification with a recognized typology shows the student understands what kind of change is being proposed. Concrete design, with rules, frequencies and thresholds, is weighted more than general descriptions. A respectful treatment of the client's earlier remedy is valued, since many proposals must handle one. The rollout is judged on its logic, including why changes start together or apart. Risks should come with responses. A clear statement of resources shows the proposal can be approved. Galbraith and Cummings and Worley should be used to justify choices, not only cited.
GB740 Unit 7 help: mistakes that cost points
Many GB740 proposals list interventions drawn from a textbook rather than from their own findings. Others propose training for problems that sit in pay, structure or procedures. Interventions are often described in a sentence, leaving the sponsor unable to picture how they work. The client's preferred remedy is either adopted uncritically or dismissed without a word. Rollout plans tend to start everywhere at once, which leaves no comparison for the evaluation. Risks are listed without responses. Tie each change to a finding, classify it, describe it in working detail, place the client's idea where it fits, sequence the rollout with reasons and answer each risk. If your diagnosis is complete, we can draft the proposal from your findings.
Get a GB740 Unit 7 example written to your instructions
Send the diagnosis you reached in earlier units, the intervention your sponsor may already favor and the Unit 7 prompt with its rubric. Your custom proposal will match the intervention to the level your findings support, map each change to a cause and plan a staged rollout. Turnaround runs 24-48h, and the opening sample is complimentary. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More GB740 papers and MBA samples
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- GB740 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- GB740 Unit 8: Stakeholder Cost Analysis
- GB740 Unit 9: Change Evaluation Plan
- GB740 Unit 10: Development Report
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GB740 Unit 7 questions, answered
What if the sponsor has already chosen the Unit 7 intervention?
That situation is common and makes a strong paper when handled honestly. The proposal can show where the sponsor's choice fits the diagnosis and where it does not, then reshape or rescale it rather than dismissing it. Doctoral readers credit a candidate who keeps the relationship intact while following the evidence.
Which classification of interventions suits a doctoral proposal?
Cummings and Worley's four types, human process, technostructural, human resource management and strategic change, are widely used and let a proposal state its level explicitly. Other typologies work if the section prefers them. What matters is using the classification to justify the match between finding and intervention.
Should the proposal include costs?
A rough costing strengthens most proposals, and some sections require one. Staff time, system changes and any external support belong in it. The fuller treatment of who bears costs, including nonfinancial ones such as lost authority, often comes in a separate stakeholder analysis, so the proposal can reference that work rather than duplicate it.
Where can I find a free GB740 Unit 7 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB740 Unit 7 intervention proposal for a civil engineering firm, linking four findings to shared margin credit, a resourcing forum, a lower utilization target and a project manager council.
What is a technostructural intervention?
It is a change to the structure, technology or work design of an organization, such as a new procedure or reporting line, as opposed to work on interpersonal processes or individual development.