14.

Case Study
LITTLE LEAQUE GAME Cathy Buford is the design leader on a project team for a large, complex technical project for a very demanding customer. Joe Jackson is an engineer assigned to her design team. It's about 9:30 a.m. when Joe walks into Cathy's office. Her head is down and she's hard at work. ''Hey Cathy,'' says Joe, ''going to the Little League game tonight? Ya know, I volunteered to coach this year.'' ''Oh. Hi,Joe. I'm really busy,'' Cathy tells him. Joe then proceeds to sit down in Cathy's office. ''I hear your kid is a pretty good ball player.'' Cathy shuffies some papers and tries to focus on her work. ''Huh? I guess so. I am so swamped.'' ''Y eah, me too,''Joe says. ''I had to take a break to get away from it for a while.'' ''Since you're here,'' Cathy says, ''I've been thinking that maybe you should evaluate using bar coding or optical character recognition technology for data entry. It might ...'' Joe interrupts, ''Look at those dark clouds forming outside. I hope the game isn't rained out tonight.'' Cathy continues, ''Some of the advantages of these technologies are ''She goes on for a few minutes. ''So what do you think?'' ''Huh? No, they won't work,'' is Joe's response. ''Trust me. Besides the customer is a lowtech kind of guy, and it would increase the project costs.'' ''But if we can show the customer that it could save him money and reduce input errors,'' Cathy persists, ''he probably would pay the extra needed to implement the technologies.'' ''Save him money!'' Joe exclaims. ''How? By laying off people? We already have too much downsizing in this country. And the government and politicians aren't doing anything about it. It doesn't matter who you vote for. They're all the same.'' ''By the way, I still need your input to the progress report,'' Cathy reminds him. ''I need to mail it to the customer tomorrow. As you know, I'll need about eight to ten pages. We need a thick report to show the customer how busy we've been.'' ''What? Nobody told me,'' says Joe. ''I sent the design team an email a couple of weeks ago saying I needed everyone's input by last Friday. You could probably use the material you've prepared for the project status review meeting tomorrow afternoon,'' Cathy responds. ''I have to make a presentation at the meeting tomorrow? That's news to me,'' Joe tells her.

''It was on the agenda distributed last week,'' says Cathy. ''I don't have time to keep up with all the stuff in my in basket,'' Joe snorts. ''Well, I'll just have to wing it. I'll use some of the transparencies from my pitch six months ago. Nobody will know the difference. Those meetings are a waste of time anyway. Nobody cares about them. Everybody thinks they are just a waste of two hours each week.'' '' Anyway, can you email me your input for the progress report by the end of the day?'' asks Cathy. ''I have to leave early for the game.'' ''What game?'' '' Aren't you listening to anything I say? The Little League game.'' ''Maybe you should start working on it now,'' Cathy suggests. ''I just have to talk to Jim first about the game tonight.'' says Joe. ''Then I'll write up a couple of paragraphs. Can't you just take notes at the meeting tomorrow when I give my pitch? That should give you what you need for the report.'' It can't wait until then. The report has to be in the mail tomorrow, and I'll be working on it late into the night.'' ''So, you won't be at the game?'' ''Just send me your input through email.'' ''I'm not being paid to be a typist,'' Joe declares. ''I cant write it much faster. You can get somebody to type it. You 'll probably want to edit it anyway. The last report to the customer looked completely different from the input I provided. It looked like you completely rewrote it.'' Cathy looks back down at her desk and attempts to continue her work. Case Questions 1. What are some of the communication problems? 2. What should Cathy do? 3. What do you think Joe will do? 4. How could Cathy and Joe have handled this situation better? 5. What could have been done to prevent the communication problem between Cathy and Joe? Answers:

1. What are some of the communication problems? Many communication problems are present in this scenario. For example, Cathy is focused in her work, but Joe is not. In fact, he is focused in everything outside of the work setting, such as baseball and the weather. Furthermore, Cathy was not listening to anything Joe was telling her about the baseball game. When Cathy mentions to him that a report needs done as soon as possible, Joe becomes angry because he claims that no one told him. Not

only that, but he also has to email her the necessary information for the report by the end of the day. Neither of these two individuals are focused in the work enough to communicate so that everything is done in a timely manner. 2. What should Cathy do? Cathy should do the following in order to take care of the situation; she either needs to delegate what tasks need done or demote Joe into a different position, so that he stays more focused on his work, instead of talking about irrelevant concepts that have nothing to do with work at all. These are her only options because of the fact that Joe is not doing his job properly, and he is making excuses to get out of it. Furthermore, Cathy has also stressed to him what needed done and he failed to do what is asked of him. 3. What do you think Joe will do? As Joe stated, he will probably do a couple of paragraphs by winging it, instead of fully taking the time to complete the report, according to what Cathy told him to do. He would rather be at the baseball game, instead of at work. When Cathy tells him what do, he makes the excuse that he is not a typist, which is a poor attitude to have at work, and he should have kept this comment to himself; therefore, I really believe that he is still going to get the report done but it is not going to get done properly. 4. How could Cathy and Joe have handled this situation better? Cathy and Joe could have handled the situation much better. In fact, they could have communicated about issues about work and the upcoming baseball game. If Joe failed to comply, then Cathy could have claimed him, instead of shrugging him while doing her own work. She also could have chosen to write him up or immediately terminate him of failing to do his job properly. Furthermore, Joe should have went directly to work, instead of talking to Cathy about not knowing what was due and when. This would have prevented any kind of anger that would have arose during the conversation along with the possibility of having the

excuses and complaints minimized. Eventually, Joe is on task and Cathy is not ignoring her co-worker while trying to do work of her own. 5. What could have been done to prevent the communication problem between Cathy and Joe? They could have communicated to each other what needs done by having a weekly meeting with everyone on staff, so that they are all on the same page. Furthermore, each of them could have communicated better through email and in person, so that each of them knows what is required for that particular week. Cathy could frequently check up on him to find out the progress he is making in regards to the report and provide some pointers as needed. This provides Joe with some level of accountability, and the opportunity to become a better worker through this process. Additionally, Cathy should have chosen to stop everything she was doing at that time in order to fully listen to everything Joe was saying to her at that time. She could have taken down notes on the baseball game when he was in her office attempting to discuss it with her at that particular time. This also means having Joe schedule an appointment in which to meet with her in order to catch her at a good time to talk.