At Appleson Publishing, Products Are Produced by a Team Representing

Multiple Choice

At Appleson Publishing, products are produced by a team representing different functional groups, none of which have supervisory authority over any of the others. Represented departments include design, production, and marketing. Design department members are skilled at identifying customer requirements and creating product specifications. Their success is measured by return on product investment, which takes into account both the money earned by a product and the money spent on that product.
Production department members are skilled at project execution. They are responsible for creating products according to the Design department members' specification. The Production department is considered successful when it completes projects according to schedule and project spending does not exceed the project's budget.
Marketing department members are responsible for building profitable relationships with target market segments. They are skilled at communicating a product's value and persuading customers to make purchases. Marketing department members' success is measured by the revenue that the products take in.
Which of the following, if true, would weaken the claim that this division of labour keeps employees focused on the tasks that fit their skills and leads to a better product?

A) Some employees who work in the marketing department used to work in the design department.
B) Projects often fail to meet their revenue goals because the design department develops products for market segments that the marketing department cannot reach.
C) Projects are often late because of product distribution problems that occur after the project is completed.
D) The number of projects that fail because they do not meet their revenue goals is lower than the number of projects that fail because they go too far over budget.
E) Projects often are unprofitable because of changes in the external environment that could not have been predicted before the project started.