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ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · Enabling success: organising

Dunmore Consulting has a managing partner supervising 14 senior consultants. Their work is complex, bespoke and varies by client, and juniors are inexperienced. Quality problems are increasing. Applying the concept of span of control, what is the most likely diagnosis and implication?

The span is too wide for complex, non-routine work with inexperienced staff, so an intermediate management layer should be added. Such conditions need close supervision, which favours narrower spans. There is no universally optimal span; it depends on task complexity, staff competence and the need for supervision.

  1. AThe span is too wide for complex, non-routine work, so an intermediate management layer should be introducedCorrect
  2. BThe span is too narrow, so layers should be removed to speed communication
  3. CThe span is appropriate because 14 subordinates is always optimal
  4. DThe problem is excessive decentralisation, so the partner should take over all client decisions

Explanation

Complex, varied work and inexperienced staff require close supervision, which favours a narrower span. A span of 14 is too wide here, so adding a management layer is appropriate. Narrow-span logic in the second option is the reverse of the facts, and no span is universally optimal.

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