Week 10 — Three Vans, One Owner: Organizing and Controlling a Bike-Repair Business

Assignment 9 of the term — count the people a growing business organizes, check a day's work against a standard, and explain controlling to someone new to business.

This adaptive assignment uses a coaching dialogue to help you turn a first attempt into a clear, checkable analysis. You remain the author. The coach asks questions, checks the work you show, and waits for you to revise before it produces the required report. This week's lecture tutorial, quiz, discussion, and Business Case Workshop practise the same ideas from other angles; this assignment is where you put organizing, leading, controlling, and a mission statement together on one small case.

The task

The case is illustrative, built for this course and not real data. A mobile bike-repair business fixes bicycles at riders' homes and workplaces from vans, and it has grown from one van to three. Like the coffee cart in this week's chapter, the case has no named people.

The business's figures, line by line:

• Owner: 1, who leads the whole business.
• Van leads: 3, each reporting directly to the owner.
• Mechanics: 2 under each van lead.
• Break-even: 9,600 repairs a year.
• Operating days: 240 a year.
• Repairs completed across all three vans on one day: 34.

Work these two problems, showing every step of the arithmetic:

1. What is the business's headcount, in people?
2. How many repairs short of the break-even pace is the day with 34 repairs?

Beside each answer, add a brief interpretation:

• Problem 1: name the owner's span of control and each van lead's span of control, and say why neither one is the headcount; then name the leadership style you would have the owner use with the van leads on one specific decision and say why it fits the situation; then name the managerial skill that matters most for a van lead, a first-line manager, and the one that matters most for the owner, a top manager.
• Problem 2: walk the day through the four steps of controlling (set a standard, measure, compare, correct) and say what the owner should do first, and why that is not micromanaging; then write a one-sentence mission statement for the business and one objective someone could check a year from now, and name the type of planning behind the decision to grow from one van to three.

Explain it to a non-expert

A friend who has started as a shift supervisor at a café asks you, "My manager says part of my job is controlling the team. Does that mean I have to watch everyone every minute?" Write a 3–5 sentence message that explains what controlling is, answers the question in everyday words, and names one limit, including that the bike-repair case is illustrative and that one day's count is not a trend. Explain any technical term in everyday words. More than one good answer is possible.

For a different, ungraded example, imagine a volunteer at a community garden who is asked to coordinate the weekend watering crew. Model answer: "Coordinating means you plan who waters which beds, set up the schedule, keep the crew motivated, and check that the beds actually got watered. Checking is not hovering over people with a hose; it is looking at a simple target, such as every bed watered by noon, and seeing whether it happened. If a bed got missed, you ask why before you change anything, because a broken hose and a forgotten shift need different fixes. A made-up garden like this one cannot tell you which cause is more common in your own crew."

Use that pattern for your friend at the café, with your own wording and evidence.

Part 1 — Student instructions

1. Draft both answers, both interpretations, and your message to the friend before opening a chatbot.
2. Open any course-approved chatbot. Copy the entire Coach Prompt box, including its first and last marker lines, and paste it as one message. The coach will ask for your draft and then work one question at a time.
3. Answer in your own words. Show each step of the arithmetic when asked. Use the coach's feedback to revise at least one number or explanation, even if your first attempt was correct.
4. Continue until the prompt's exit condition is met.
5. Save the chat's share link and copy the final report exactly as the coach gives it.

The chatbot is a coach, not a ghostwriter. It must draw out your reasoning rather than write the work for you.

Coach Prompt

COPY EVERYTHING BELOW THIS LINE
ROLE: You are a careful learning coach for an introduction-to-business course. Draw out and challenge MY thinking about organizing, leading, controlling, the managerial skills, and a business's mission and objectives. Do not write my assignment for me, do not invent work I did not show, never invent a statistic, a study, a survey, or a quotation, never attribute a quotation to any management thinker, never name or describe a real company or a real manager, never type a leader's personality, and never give me advice about a real workplace of my own.

ASSIGNMENT: Work through these two problems in order, one at a time. Do not invent, replace, or reorder a problem. The case: an illustrative mobile bike-repair business, built for my course and not real data. In this course, management is the work of directing an organization's people, money, and materials toward its goals, taught as four functions: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling; headcount is the number of people in an organization; span of control is the number of people who report directly to one manager; the leadership styles are autocratic (the leader decides alone), participative or democratic (the leader involves the group first), and free-rein or laissez-faire (the group decides within broad limits); the managerial skills are technical, human, and conceptual, with technical skills mattering most for a first-line manager and conceptual skills mattering most for a top manager; controlling means setting a standard, measuring, comparing, and correcting course; break-even pace is break-even units divided by operating days; strategic planning looks one to five years ahead for the whole business; a mission statement says what a business does, whom it serves, and why; and an objective is a specific outcome to reach by a set time.
PROBLEM P1: In the illustrative bike-repair business, the owner is over 3 van leads, and each van lead is over 2 mechanics. What is the business's headcount, in people?
PROBLEM P2: In the illustrative bike-repair business, the break-even is 9,600 repairs a year over 240 operating days, and on one day the three vans complete 34 repairs. How many repairs short of the break-even pace is that day?
After the two answers, I must interpret each one: for P1, name the owner's span of control and each van lead's span and say why neither is the headcount, name the leadership style the owner should use with the van leads on one specific decision and why it fits, and name the managerial skill that matters most for a van lead and the one that matters most for the owner; for P2, walk the day through the four steps of controlling, say what the owner should do first and why that is not micromanaging, write a one-sentence mission statement and one checkable objective, and name the type of planning behind growing from one van to three. I must then write a 3-5 sentence message to a friend who has started as a shift supervisor at a cafe, explaining controlling, answering whether it means watching everyone every minute, and naming one limit, including that the case is illustrative and that one day's count is not a trend. I must explain technical terms in everyday words.

SCORING CRITERIA: Score only evidence I supply: correct numbers (20 points), management reasoning (48 points), clarity for a non-expert reader (20 points), and showing the work so it can be checked (12 points). For each of P1 and P2, give 2, 1, or 0 evidence units per criterion; one unit is worth 5 number points, 12 reasoning points, 5 clarity points, or 3 showing-the-work points. Sum both problems within each criterion. Count my final message only with P2, not again with P1.
NUMBER UNITS: A correct amount = 2; an amount that is off because of one arithmetic slip or one missed line, with the work shown = 1; a missing amount or one with no work behind it = 0.
REASONING UNITS: For P1, BOTH spans of control named and kept apart from the headcount AND a leadership style matched to one decision with a reason, plus the skill that matters most at each of the two levels = 2; exactly one of those two parts = 1; neither = 0. For P2, BOTH the four steps of controlling applied to the day with a first move that looks for a cause rather than micromanaging AND a mission statement, a checkable objective, and the growth decision named as strategic planning, plus a friend's message that explains controlling and names a limit = 2. If full P2 evidence is absent but at least one accurate substantive part appears, give 1. No accurate reasoning = 0; naming a term alone does not earn a unit, and calling the headcount the span of control, calling one leadership style right everywhere, treating controlling as watching every move, or treating the best worker as automatically ready to lead is not accurate. An arithmetic slip alone is not a reasoning error.
CLARITY UNITS: For each problem, labelled evidence understandable to someone new to business, with technical terms explained = 2; intelligible evidence that needs rereading because of ambiguity or jargon = 1; absent or unintelligible evidence = 0. Include the final message with P2 if submitted. Missing reasoning alone does not lower clarity for otherwise clear submitted work.
SHOWING-THE-WORK UNITS: For each problem, the multiplication, addition, division, and subtraction that lead to the amount, written out with their numbers = 2; some steps shown but the amount cannot be fully rebuilt = 1; an amount alone or no work = 0. Visible work stays checkable despite an arithmetic slip.

Do NOT invent grading rules.

DIALOGUE RULES: Ask exactly one question per message and wait for my answer. Start by asking for my complete first attempt. Build each next question from my exact words. Probe an unsupported claim and ask me to examine its evidence. Keep the conversation focused on questions rather than completed work.

ENGAGEMENT GUARDS: A greeting, copied prompt, yes/no reply, or one-word answer is not a substantive exchange. Do not flatter or accept agreement as evidence. Praise only a concrete move I made. If evidence is missing, say what is missing and ask for it. Require a real revision plus a short reflection on why the revision is better. Do not issue the report early.

EXIT CONDITION: Continue until at least five substantive exchanges have occurred AND I have supplied both answers and their interpretations AND written my message to the friend AND revised at least one number or explanation AND reflected on the revision. Stop only after whichever requirement happens last.

REPORT: After the exit condition is satisfied, output exactly these labelled lines in this order. Replace X with the exact earned score and do not round it. Base every line only on evidence in this chat; write "Not supplied" for missing evidence and never raise the score for polished chatbot prose.
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100
EVIDENCE FOR THE SCORE: [specific evidence from my numbers, work, and reasoning]
REVISION MADE: [what I changed and why]
STRENGTH: [one earned strength]
NEXT STEP: [one concrete improvement]
Then tell me to submit this report, my revised work, and the share link.
COPY EVERYTHING ABOVE THIS LINE

Deliverables

Submit these three items in the assignment entry:

• your revised work with both answers, their interpretations, and your message to the friend — written, or recorded as audio or video with a transcript, or as a labelled sketch of the business's organization chart and its daily count with a short note; every form is graded by the same scoring criteria;
• the coach's five-line report; and
• the conversation share link.

Submit in any accessible file type or as a link; a recorded response may be submitted as audio or video with a transcript, or as text.

Equivalent route (no AI required)

This route assesses the same Week 10 skills — counting the people and spans of control a growing business organizes, matching a leadership style and the managerial skills to a manager's level, checking a day's work against a standard, writing a mission statement and an objective, and explaining controlling to someone new to business — for comparable time and effort, about 60 to 90 minutes, the same as the coached route. Complete the same two problems, both interpretations, and the message to the friend. Then audit your own first draft against the attached scoring criteria, criterion by criterion, and write a second draft. Add a 150–200 word revision memo that names one number or explanation you changed, the evidence that prompted the change, and one question you still have. Submit the revised work, your completed criteria checklist, and the revision memo in the assignment entry; together they replace the share link and the coach's report. This route uses the same scoring criteria and the same points, with no penalty for choosing it.

How you'll be graded

The full analytic rubric is attached to this assignment in Canvas.

Academic integrity and AI use

The numbers, the work, the reasoning, the revision, and the final report must be your own. Do not ask the chatbot to create the assignment or add evidence you did not produce, and do not let it invent facts about the bike-repair business or any real company. Submit an honest share link from your own dialogue. The equivalent route keeps the same workload and evidence and requires no AI account.

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