How would you advise Kate to proceed? Analyze the conversation she had this morning. What went right? What went wrong? Kate Thomas, a project manager with Johnson & Rogers Software Engineering, was looking forward to her first project team “meeting.” She applied quotes to the term

“meeting” because she would not actually be sitting down at a table with any of the other members of the project team. She had been assigned responsibility for a large software development project that would be using team members from both inside and outside the organization, none of whom were currently employed at the same Redlands, California office where she worked. In fact, as she ticked off the names on the legal pad in front of her, she did not know whether to be impressed or apprehensive with the project she was about to kick off.

Vignish Ramanujam (senior programmer)—New Delhi, India Anders Blomquist (systems designer)—Uppsala, Sweden Sally Dowd (systems engineer)—Atlanta, Georgia Penny Jones (junior programmer)—Bristol, England Patrick Flynn (junior programmer)—San Antonio, Texas Erik Westerveldt (subcontractor)—Pretoria, South Africa Toshiro Akame (customer representative)—Kyoto, Japan