Act 2 – Steps to Integration

The respective leaders of the engineering organizations – Karl in Germany, Roger in the U.S. – agree on the steps to be taken: the two of them together with the heads of their five key departments will formulate an integration roadmap.

They have given themselves six weeks to prepare for a full-week offsite workshop. It will take place in the U.S. Their job in the workshop is to produce a draft roadmap.

After that they will have two weeks to work out the details of the draft. This they will do separate from each other.

They will then come together for a second workshop. This time in Germany. Again for a full week. Their task in that second workshop is to finalize and commit to the integration roadmap.

In both workshops, each of the five departments will have an entire day. The day’s structure has three parts: the respective department heads present their recommendations on how to integrate – German proposal, American proposal; all colleagues discuss and debate; the two heads who presented then draft the roadmap for their department.

Each department should address five areas: product lines, processes & tools, organizational structure, collaboration with internal and external customers, and finances.

The two workshops are limited to twelve participants: the two heads per each of the five departments plus Roger and Karl. After this high-level roadmap has been finalized and committed to, each of the departments heads will then ask their key teams to break down the roadmap into more detailed roadmaps.

Questions
What is operating in the minds and hearts of the two engineering teams, meaning: Karl and Roger, as well as the respective German and the American department heads?

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