| Course | MT400 Business Process Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 6 |
| Paper type | Seminar reflection |
| Length | About 800 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT400 Unit 6
Owning a Flow, Not a Function: An MT400 Unit 6 Seminar Reflection on Who Should Own Contract to Cash
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT400: Business Process Management
Unit 6 Seminar Reflection
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The seminar, classmates and company are composite; the sources cited are real.
What I Believed Going In
My position was simple and, I thought, practical. Measuring, purchasing, scheduling and installation all report to the vice president of operations. Most of the 34 days of internal waiting in the handoff analysis sat in or between those departments. Giving the process to the executive who already controlled most of it seemed like the shortest path to change, and it would not require a new role.
What Pressed on It
The first challenge came from the instructor, who asked a single question: which of that executive's own measures would suffer if orders were released faster? I knew the answer as soon as she asked. Operations is measured on crew utilization, and the easiest way to keep crews fully booked is to hold installs until a full day's route can be scheduled. That practice adds days to the homeowner's wait. An executive judged on utilization would be asked, as process owner, to reduce the very waiting that protects her own target. Kerr (1975) described exactly this conflict, an organization rewarding one behavior while asking for another.
The second challenge came from a classmate who pointed out that sales and accounting sit wholly outside operations. The contract that starts the process and the invoice that ends it belong to departments the vice president does not run. Two of the three most expensive handoffs, contract to measure and installation to invoice, cross into those departments. Ownership by operations would leave the beginning and end of the process with no one.
Owning a function means owning its people and its targets; owning a flow means owning the rules that move work between functions.
What I Would Propose Now
I now think the process needs a director of customer delivery who reports to the president and owns the process's rules rather than its people. The director would set order release criteria, scheduling rules and close-out standards that every department crossing the flow must follow, but would hire no one and set no pay. Hammer (2007) describes the process owner's role in just these terms: authority over the design and performance of a process, distinct from managerial authority over the people who perform it. Applied to the crew utilization problem, the director could set a rule that installs are scheduled within a fixed number of days of receiving the units, even if a route is not full, and operations would adjust its utilization target to fit.
That arrangement is not free. Trkman (2010) found that clear process ownership and alignment of measures are among the factors that most separate successful process management from failed efforts, and the second of those, alignment, is exactly where my proposal is weakest.
How the Role Would Work Week to Week
I tried to picture the director's ordinary week, since a role that only exists on a chart changes nothing. On Monday the director would review the six process indicators and the list of orders waiting at any handoff longer than its standard. On Tuesday, at the foremen's meeting, the director would settle disputes about release and scheduling rules. Once a month the director would chair a council of the seven department heads whose staff touch the flow. None of that requires supervising anyone, but all of it requires that department heads accept the director's rules as binding, which is why the role must report to the president rather than to any one of them.
What I Left Out of My First Answer
Looking back, my first position rested on a quiet assumption: that whoever controls the most people should control the process. The seminar showed me that control of people is precisely what makes a department head a poor owner of a flow, because every rule that serves the homeowner also costs some department something. A process owner needs to be neutral among the departments, and an executive who runs four of them cannot be.
What I Still Cannot Answer
What happens when a process rule costs a department its own target? If the director's scheduling rule lowers crew utilization, does operations miss its bonus? If the answer is yes, operations will resist the rule; if the answer is that the target changes automatically, the director effectively controls operations' scorecard. I do not know which is right, and the seminar did not settle it. I am handing the question forward to the governance charter in Unit 9, which will have to say who decides when a process rule and a department's target collide.
References
Hammer, M. (2007). The process audit. Harvard Business Review, 85(4), 111-123.
Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 18(4), 769-783. https://doi.org/10.2307/255378
Trkman, P. (2010). The critical success factors of business process management. International Journal of Information Management, 30(2), 125-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2009.07.003
MT400 Unit 6 instructions, in plain terms
The sixth unit asks students to reflect on the seminar discussion, usually about who should own a cross-functional process and how ownership should work. Instructors want a position stated as it stood before the seminar, the arguments or questions that tested it, and where the student landed afterward. A change of mind is not required, but the reasoning must show what was weighed. Course concepts such as process ownership, function versus flow, and the effect of rewards on behavior should appear in use rather than as definitions. Students who cannot attend generally complete a written alternative, and the reflection adapts to it. First person is expected. The strongest reflections end with a question the seminar left open and say where in the course it will be answered.
How the MT 400 Unit 6 example is put together
Part one of the sample states the original position and why it seemed practical, given that most internal waiting sat in operations' departments. The second part records two challenges: the instructor's question about crew utilization, which Kerr's classic paper on rewards that pay for the wrong thing explains, and the classmate's point about sales and accounting. A highlighted line then separates owning a function from owning a flow. The proposal section describes a director who sets release, scheduling and close-out rules but hires no one, citing Hammer on process owners and Trkman on alignment. A section pictures the director's ordinary week. Another names the assumption behind the first answer. The reflection closes on what happens when a process rule costs a department its target, and hands that question forward.
MT400 Unit 6 rubric: what earns full points
Seminar reflections are usually graded on an honest starting position, engagement with specific challenges from the session, use of course concepts and a reasoned conclusion. A reflection that only summarizes the discussion earns little, because the rubric asks what the student thought and why it moved or held. Credit goes to naming who raised each challenge and what it exposed. Concepts applied to the case, like the conflict between a utilization target and a faster flow, score better than definitions. Picturing how a proposal would work in practice shows judgment. An open question tied to a later unit demonstrates connection across the course. Points also go to clear first-person writing, a sensible length and APA 7 citations for every source the reflection draws on.
Common MT400 Unit 6 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many seminar reflections retell who said what without ever stating the writer's own view. Others claim a change of mind but give no reason, which reads as agreement with the last speaker. A common gap is the missing concept: the student describes the debate in everyday terms and never uses the reading that would explain it. Some reflections propose a solution with no thought about how it would work on a Monday morning. Endings are often a summary rather than a question. If you used the written alternative, work from the reading's argument in place of a classmate's challenge. Before submitting, check that a reader could state your position before the seminar, the strongest point against it and what you would now propose, each in one sentence.
Get an MT400 Unit 6 example written to your instructions
A reflection hinges on the session you actually sat through, so the free first custom sample begins from your notes on the Unit 6 discussion, or from the reading assigned in its place. It is written in your rubric's format and delivered within 24-48h, argued toward revising your view or keeping it, as you specify. 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.
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MT400 Unit 6 questions, answered
What if I used the written alternative instead of attending?
Many sections offer one, and the reflection prompt usually adapts to it; your course announcements will say how. Either way, the strongest reflections still show a position tested against something, whether a classmate's objection in the live session or an argument in the assigned reading, followed by what you now think and why.
Does the reflection have to change its mind?
No. A reflection can defend the view you arrived with, provided it shows what challenged that view and why you still hold it. The sample records a change because that is what happened in its composite session. What graders reward is visible reasoning about ownership, not a particular conclusion. Either way, tie that reasoning to the case's own departments and measures.
How much of the case should an MT400 seminar reflection repeat?
Just enough context for the argument to make sense. If your seminar discussed a case the instructor supplied, one or two sentences about it will do, since your grader was there or set the reading. The rest of the space belongs to the ideas that moved your thinking and the course concepts you applied to them.
Where can I find a free MT400 Unit 6 sample paper?
This page holds the full MT400 Unit 6 seminar reflection, in which a student moves from operations ownership of a window order flow to a neutral process owner.
What question does the MT400 Unit 6 sample leave for the charter?
Who decides when a process rule, such as scheduling installs before a route is full, costs a department its own target, such as crew utilization.