Business, Harvard, PhD / 08.01.2022
CONTEXT CHP is an executive helicopter transportation company and was formed three years ago with two ports and two pilots; Chuck and Terry. Two years ago, the company expanded to its current state of three ports, four pilots, and an office with an office manager, Lisa. Last year, Chuck retired from flying and another pilot was hired. The process for taking reservations and passenger manifests has not changed too much since the beginning. Now, with sights on further expansion, a new way of managing reservations and scheduling flights is required. CHP is the brainchild of Chuck “Chopper” McGraw. Chopper is a former military helicopter pilot himself who now concentrates on running the business. He is very much a people person and wants to make sure his customer’s expectations are exceeded. In order for the company to grow, Chopper knows he needs to automate things. Chopper’s business partner Lesley Tkachuk is a certified accountant and handles all the financial operations of CHP. Her priorities lay with the back-office systems. CURRENT SITUATION Each heli-port location consists of a heli-pad and a small building known as the “Heli-Shack.” The Heli-Shacks are used as an office for the pilot and as a passenger waiting area. The passenger manifest is sent to a fax machine in the office and is picked up before the flight. All reservations are called in or are walk-ups. Lisa takes all of the calls and enters them into a passenger manifest spreadsheet. Fifteen minutes before the flight, she faxes the manifest to the respective Heli-Shack. Prior to each flight, the pilot picks up the manifest off the fax machine, then verifies the passengers and calls Lisa with any “walk-up” passengers so she can add them to the manifest spreadsheet. Passengers can pay by cash, credit cards, and prepaid multi-flight tickets. FUTURE NEEDS Chopper wants passengers to be able to book and pay for flights through a website. He also wants Lisa to be able to manage flight schedules, passenger manifest, and pilot schedules through the website. Lisa still needs to be able to add passengers that call in. Pilots are to receive passenger manifests through handheld devices using bifurcated-spurgleloops (BS. They also need to add walk-up passengers through this device. Chuck plans to expand to a total of 10 Heli-Ports by the end of next year. He is planning to have the first two open in 6 months from now and needs to get the new reservation system in place prior to the opening of these two new heli- ports. DELIVERABLES Please submit the following two documents back to Thoughtworks. ❖ Provide a diagram for the current business processes in this scenario. The diagram should try to include any existing “pain points” in the process. ❖ Prepare an agenda for the first customer meeting to be submitted to CHP and specify the attendees that you would like in the meeting.
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