WGU D078 - BUSINESS STRUCTURES AND LEGAL ENVIRONMENT
TASK 1 | ACCURATE AND VERIFIED ANSWERS| 2026 UPDATE
Part A
1. The teams structure would be the optimal organizational structure to help this consulting
business address the sustainability needs and innovation in the community. Team
structure brings together people/members as a team where each member has unique
and complementary skills that help the company reach its overall goal of raising our
city’s ranking in the “Most Sustainable and Innovative Communities” list to the top 10%
of all U.S. communities. By structuring this consulting business as a team, it will allow
the business to adjust and adapt quickly to changing environments and demands of its
clients. A team structure will also allow the company to pull in people from other
sources, such as investors, interners, and advisors, who have specialized expertise and
skills other members of the team do not have.
2. There are four factors that work within an organizational structure; Function or
Departments, Chain of Command, Centralized or Decentralized, and Level of Formality.
Each of these four factors work as follows within the Teams structure:
a. The functional or departments factor compliments the team structure in that a
team is made of members with unique skills and specialized expertise. This
allows for a natural division of work among the team members by assigning work
and tasks to members of the team who have the expertise and skills to best
complete the assignment.
b. In a team structure, the chain of command factor helps establish guidelines for
the team, how decisions will be made, and helps set in place a team leader that
the other members of the team report to.
c. With this consulting business being new and having only a few team members,
the Centralized or Decentralized factor would work in this team structure as a low
centralization for decision making. With so few team members at the business,
the team can easily communicate the decisions that need to be made and the
team leader, or in this case the founder of the business, can make decisions
based on the bigger items after being provided the information from the rest of
the team, but also allow individual members to make decisions on their own for
the smaller decisions that they have the expertise in. This would allow for timely
decision making to happen without hindering the overall goal of the business.
d. This consulting business is new with very few team members and the level of
formality in this team structure would be a combination of formal and informal.
On the side of formal, each team member’s role and responsibilities are defined
since each member of the team has a different skill they bring to help the
business meet the overall goal. The team will also be informal as well since the
size of team is small and the team members will be working together closely,
addressing each other by formal title could put a barrier between the members
and cause a disconnect or delays in decisions.
TASK 1 | ACCURATE AND VERIFIED ANSWERS| 2026 UPDATE
Part A
1. The teams structure would be the optimal organizational structure to help this consulting
business address the sustainability needs and innovation in the community. Team
structure brings together people/members as a team where each member has unique
and complementary skills that help the company reach its overall goal of raising our
city’s ranking in the “Most Sustainable and Innovative Communities” list to the top 10%
of all U.S. communities. By structuring this consulting business as a team, it will allow
the business to adjust and adapt quickly to changing environments and demands of its
clients. A team structure will also allow the company to pull in people from other
sources, such as investors, interners, and advisors, who have specialized expertise and
skills other members of the team do not have.
2. There are four factors that work within an organizational structure; Function or
Departments, Chain of Command, Centralized or Decentralized, and Level of Formality.
Each of these four factors work as follows within the Teams structure:
a. The functional or departments factor compliments the team structure in that a
team is made of members with unique skills and specialized expertise. This
allows for a natural division of work among the team members by assigning work
and tasks to members of the team who have the expertise and skills to best
complete the assignment.
b. In a team structure, the chain of command factor helps establish guidelines for
the team, how decisions will be made, and helps set in place a team leader that
the other members of the team report to.
c. With this consulting business being new and having only a few team members,
the Centralized or Decentralized factor would work in this team structure as a low
centralization for decision making. With so few team members at the business,
the team can easily communicate the decisions that need to be made and the
team leader, or in this case the founder of the business, can make decisions
based on the bigger items after being provided the information from the rest of
the team, but also allow individual members to make decisions on their own for
the smaller decisions that they have the expertise in. This would allow for timely
decision making to happen without hindering the overall goal of the business.
d. This consulting business is new with very few team members and the level of
formality in this team structure would be a combination of formal and informal.
On the side of formal, each team member’s role and responsibilities are defined
since each member of the team has a different skill they bring to help the
business meet the overall goal. The team will also be informal as well since the
size of team is small and the team members will be working together closely,
addressing each other by formal title could put a barrier between the members
and cause a disconnect or delays in decisions.
