Purpose: To make well-informed decisions, it is important to be able to carefully identify problems and opportunities. A critical part of this process is asking the right questions – well-defined prac

For those students who cannot find their own topics, these four options are provided to be used as a EXAMPLES for the development of your own problem. If you do choose to use one of these subjects, you will be required to make changes to the problem to make it your own.  

The same topic may be used for the entire course. Remember you can choose your own topic if you prefer.

Option 1

You are the CEO of an Australian company that operates a chain of health food stores. Established five years ago, the company currently operates in Sydney only, and has been very profitable. You have 10 stores. Even though you are profitable, growth has stalled. Your top line revenue is flat, and you are unsure of how to continue to grow the company in order to satisfy your Board and investors, who would like to see 5% growth annually.

The top management team feels that the profits should be used to fund geographic expansion to Melbourne and Brisbane. For the CEO, the decision is intimidating. She is not entirely certain if geographic diversification would be a good path to growth for her company. In particular, she is not sure what successful geographic diversification would involve and whether her firm can create the conditions necessary for this to work. You are a consultant who has been asked by the CEO to advised her on this problem.

Option 2

1.    Imagine you are hired as an evidence-based consultant by a very large Australian retail firm (30,000 employees).

2.    The leader of the HR department stated “There are problems with long-term absences, including our staff repeatedly not providing medical certificates when they call in sick. These absences have steadily increased over the past two years.”

3.    The average unscheduled absence for the retail arms is 15 days and 10 days in the distribution arms (they are entitled to 15 and 10 days respectively)

4.    The central human resources (HR) function has people located in every capital city.

Option 3

You are the Vice-Chancellor and President of a large Australian University. Diversity and inclusion are important values to the university, and many policies exist to ensure racial, cultural, and gender diversity, including a focus on LGBTI support.

It has come to your attention that the transgender population in Australia is much larger than previously thought, and that many transgenders exists in the student population, faculty and staff. Your leadership team believes that ensuring support for this population is important for the university. However, you are unsure of how big the issue is and how support for this population would be demonstrated. You’ve heard a rumor that transgender students might be experiencing bullying.

Option 4

You are the leader of the engineering department of a large gas distribution utility. You are losing 5%of your 25-35-year-old engineers each year, a sharp increase, and have a hunch that it may be because your baby-boomer leaders do not understand how to lead millennials. You are considering a leadership development program but want to be certain this is the issue before investing money in a solution.