2. Choosing the Best Communication Medium for the Situation In each situation below, what medium (e.g., letter, email, informal conversation, formal presentation, a combination of media) would you use to communicate your message. Why? What benefits does your choice offer in the given situation? Does it carry any particular risks?

a. You’ve been a junior project manager for two years. Most of the time, your current role involves assisting senior project managers with documentation and administrative tasks on their projects. You feel that you’ve done an excellent job and learned a lot, but you have reached a point where you are no longer learning new skills and growing professionally. You want your manager to give you the chance to manage your own project.

b. You manage a bookstore. Your store offers a discount to employees and their immediate families, but recently the number of books sold with employee discounts has gone up greatly, leading you to suspect some employees are offering their discounts to a wider group of people than their immediate family. You need to remind your salespeople that the employee discount is only for employees and their immediate families.

c. You are in charge of vendor relationships for a large manufacturing company. Your company has recently adopted ISO 9000 standards, and you are requiring your suppliers to adopt the standards too.

Those not already complying will have 18 months to bring their companies into compliance. You need to make all your firm’s suppliers aware of this new requirement.

d. You decide to give a lunchtime talk at your firm on an area of person expertise. You think the subject might be of interest to many of your co-workers.

You need to let them know both the subject of your talk and the logistical details of the event

(e.g., noon, Room 308, bring your lunch, drinks will be provided).

e. Your department team is spread over a wide geographic area, and you feel that everyone is working on projects in isolation. You think your team would benefit from hearing each other’s input on opportunities and problems that arise.

You need to provide a way to allow the whole team to be aware of each other’s issues and to provide feedback, insights, and suggestions.