It had been almost 15 months since Prateek Patil joined Alpha Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 1 (hereafter referred to as Alpha Tech). Prateek was an engineer with a degree in computer science from a college based in Hubli, a tier-2 city 2 in the north of the state of Karnataka, India. Though coming from a humble background and educated in a small town school and college, he had earned a reputation as a tech maverick and a genius in his domain. He landed a placement opportunity (through his college placement drive) at an IT startup company called Crudle Labs. He performed exceptionally well there, and the founder of the company, Ganesh Sanmukh Rao, offered him a portion of the equity holdings to ensure he continued working there in the long term. Prateek was passionately interested in the work he was doing, as well as the offer made by Mr Rao. However, during the same period, his close friend Sachin Kulkarni was planning a new venturea startup firm and requested Prateek to be part of it. Due to the insistence of his friend, Prateek left Crudle Labs to join Alpha Tech. Alpha Tech was an entrepreneurial venture based in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. Bengaluru was considered to be Indias Silicon Valley and the countrys leading startup hub. Alpha Tech was founded in 2015 by secondgeneration entrepreneur, 3 Sachin Kulkarni, along with his friends, Siddharth Deshpande, Raghvendra Shetty, Vaibhav Kulkarni, and Ashutosh Naik. It was a private limited firm 4 with Sachin at the helm as CEO and others in leadership roles. On joining the firm, Prateek became a pivotal part of it. Alpha Tech was involved in IT-related product development: they offered software solutions to a wide range of business areas like banks, e-commerce, customer support, media and entertainment, and informational web portals in India. Its primary products and services included project management systems, ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems, CRM (customer relationship management) systems, application of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, web applications, application testing, and maintenance. However, it specialized in chatbot 5 -, web application-, and mobile application development, machine learning, web design, and cloud services.

Entrepreneurial Team at Alpha Tech While Siddharth and Raghvendra had been Sachins friends since their higher secondary school days in Bengaluru, Vaibhav was his cousin whom he been compelled to include at the insistence of his family. Siddharth had completed an accredited course in AI 6 and machine learning 7 from the UK and had worked on several projects related to AI, the Internet of Things 8 (IoT), machine learning, robotics, ERP, 9 CRM, 10 and project management during his college internship days and later as a part-time consultant in the UK and in Bengaluru. Vaibhav was Sachins cousin; Mr Guruprasad Kulkarni, Sachins uncle, was a chartered accountant who had helped the Alpha team with their tax returns and who regularly offered legal advice. Ashutosh was a friend of Vaibhav and, coming from an affluent family, he had invested a significant portion of Alpha Techs seed capital. 11 Ashutosh was a commerce graduate who was pursuing an MBA along with his involvement in the Alpha Tech. He had managed Alpha Techs accounts in its initial days. Raghvendra had completed a BTech and diploma in computer science in Canada and had also worked in a startup firm, Foresight AI (a robotics technology developer that was building a platform to host data and AI globally), based in the city of San Jose, CaliforniaSilicon Valley. 12 He had a sound domain knowledge and contributed a lot of human capital in the form of intellect and skill set. Raghvendra was also outstanding in the domains of AI, big data, 13 and robotics. While working at San Jose he became interested in startup firms and starting his own firm and that was one of the reasons he returned to his native country and joined his friends startup venture. Sachins family members were involved in their own business for generations: they processed and packaged edible oils. However, while studying for his degree in computer science, Sachin realized that his interests lay elsewhere and he did not want to continue working in the family business. After completing his degree, he worked for the family business for a year, all the while nursing his dreams of starting his own business, and began saving money for this future venture. Sachins father and other family members were initially disappointed with his decision to leave the family business, but with time, Sachin was able to convince them of his entrepreneurial dreams, and on seeing his passion, hard work, and commitment to his venture, they began to support Alpha Tech. His father even agreed to be on the board of advisers for the firm. Coming from a family that were in business had distinct advantages for Sachin: he already had strong contacts and access to a network of pertinent, business-related members through his family ties.

Team Members Orientations It was at Sachins insistence that Prateek had left an exciting and flourishing job (with great potential for career progression, personal growth, and a leadership role) at Crudle Labs. While the initial tenure at Alpha Tech was relatively smooth and productive for Prateek, things began to turn sour and it had now reached the stage where Prateek was contemplating quitting the company. Prateek found the work culture and team environment at Alpha Tech to be entirely different to that of Crudle Labs. At his previous workplace, most team members had internalized the vision of the founder and shared similar levels of passion and dedication: this maintained a strong morale and work ethic. Even the few unengaged team members got transformed and engrossed in the Crudle Labs work culture due to the positive work environment and team synergy. It was very different at Alpha Tech. After the initial period, Prateek started to sense a lack of direction, drive, and goal congruency among several team members. He found the team environment to be lacking in commitment, passion, and motivation compared to that of Crudle Labs. He also had his doubts about the role allocations within the team. Prateek started to observe and reflect on the personality traits and work styles of the team members at Alpha Tech: the passion and dedication levels differed significantly among the team members. While Sachin and Siddharth were determined to make their venture a success, Raghvendra, Vaibhav, and Ashutosh did not share the same level of commitment. They differed on the vision of the company. While Sachin and Siddharth seemed to agree on most things, there were also some differences in opinion between the two: Siddharth (along with Raghvendra) wanted to focus on application of the latest technologies (i.e., AI, robotics, IoT) given his interest, skill set, and experience in these areas. Unfortunately, he could not instill the same level of interest in Sachin or the other team members about AI or machine learning. However, Raghvendra did support him in this regard. Raghvendra was wondering whether he had done the right thing leaving the United States to join the startup. He was not getting enough time to work toward his own startup dreams. Vaibhav was not as dedicated to the venture as Sachin, Siddharth, or even Raghvendra. Vaibhav held a BBA degree (Bachelor of Business Administration), but while at university he was more interested in online gaming and socializing than his studies. He lacked management skills, despite spending three years in a good business school. He lacked professionalism and needed to develop a more relevant, work-specific skill sets. Though he had helped launch promotional campaigns for the firm through Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other popular online networking sites, he was not able to fulfill the coordination and follow-up work. Sachin felt that Vaibhavs online socializing abilities could potentially be tapped for marketing initiatives but, overall, he felt disappointed with Vaibhavs contribution to the team, particularly his attitude and approach to work. Ashutosh was a commerce graduate and was pursuing a part-time MBA along with his involvement in the Alpha Tech venture. He had initially managed the accounts, but because of recurring accounting mistakes, Sachin had to hire a competent accountant. Ashutosh was good in sales and public relations activities; he possessed good analytical abilities, could be powerfully convincing, and had an excellent command over language, so in addition to sales, Sachin wanted him to manage Alpha Techs external relations, get involved in business negotiations, and contribute to marketing campaigns. His commerce, as well as MBA knowledge, benefited the engineering-dominated startup team. Ashutosh, however, was too immersed in his MBA course and could not give enough time and energy to the firms work. Ashutosh had been drawn into the venture by Vaibhav; and Asutoshs father had also invested capital in the firm, and that retrained Sachin from taking any serious action against him. Prateek discovered these latent but influential dynamics of the team quite soon and was disappointed. Chatbot Project Alpha Tech developed a wide assortment of software applications for e-commerce, financial services, and logistics firms. Typically, a client approached Alpha Tech with a list of problems they wanted to solve and/or features they wanted to include in their software applications, which typically involved organizational improvement targets. The majority of Alpha Techs clients were not very tech-savvy: they were heavily dependent on Alpha Tech to diagnose their problems, integrate new features, and implement the software applications. The industry for software applications was highly competitive, wherein the prime requisites for winning orders were the quality of the applications and competitive pricing. Low pricing was vital to winning contracts. Therefore, effective project management was essential for project success, as loosely managed projects could delay the project and increase costs. Hence, it was crucial for Alpha Tech to apply effective project management techniques to ensure project success. After being awarded the chatbot contract, the team members of Alpha Tech were having mixed responses about their roles and the nature of the work they would be undertaking in the project. The project demanded the application of novel digital technologies such as IoT, big data, cloud computing, and machine learning. Prateek was the natural choice to head the project, but he did not relish holding such a responsible position and politely declined. Prateek felt that positions of high accountability and responsibility restricted his creativity. He assured Sachin that he would treat the project as his own and would be the brain behind it without formally heading the team. He agreed to lead the design team while Sachin took the role as project head. Prateek and Sachin were quite enthusiastic about this ambitious project. In a group meeting, Sachin stressed that this project would be speciala milestone in the firms evolutionary journey. Prateek exuberantly exclaimed, if we are able to deliver this project to the client in a timely fashion, theres a high chance well be able to secure similar, quality projects from big, multinational corporations in the future. Therefore, we must ensure timely delivery of this project. The new project received mixed responses from the employees. Sachin was obviously excited as it was his initiative, and he considered it to be a major milestone in the firms growth. Prateek also felt quite excited and engaged. Prateek had taken the prime responsibility of designing the chatbot platform and was driving the software coding and programming elements. He was completely engrossed in the project and expected similar involvement from the other members; however, this was not forthcomingthe other teammates were not equally excited. Raghvendra was initially enthusiastic as the project work was related to his area of interest and he was able to implement his skills. However, he started generating his own design suggestions, most of which were not practical and were hence rejected by Prateek and Sachin. This led to Raghvenra developing a grudge against Prateek primarily and even Sachin. On one occasion, he told Vaibhav, Sachin has allowed Prateek too much freedom; hes hijacked the project.

Problems in the Chatbot Project During the first few weeks, everything went smoothly. Everyone was equally engrossed and were informally discussing the project and its elements with each other. Everyone was well aware of each others work and kept track of the progress of the diverse elements of the project. Soon, however, things started to deteriorate: team members lacked consensus on several aspects of project work; they were unable to understand the clients requirements; whenever they consulted the clients representatives to discuss deliverables, they often had opposing views that led to ambiguity. During this period, Alpha Techs management team noticed an upsurge in project operating costs and a related drop-off in profitability estimates. The project manager and a few senior members of the team blamed project delays on the clients; this tendency to transfer responsibility to the clients was their generic response. Sachin decided to have an informal weekend meeting with the team members over lunch to learn where After patiently listening to the problem underlying the unsatisfactory progress of project work, Sachin struggled to find a solution. Moreover, he was having a hard time convincing their clients that the company would be able to deliver projects in a timely manner. He was going to have to take concrete action to deal with this. Meanwhile, the aimlessly meandering MyApparels chatbot project was increasing Prateeks restlessness. Despite Prateeks own high hopes of making it big with the project currently seeming unattainable, Aashish and the MyApparel team continued to be impressed with his talent and future potential for success, and their working relationship strengthened through this and their earlier collaborations. Although Aashish was not familiar with Prateeks team management and working style, he had confidence in his technical competence and ability to lead any such projects. Aashish therefore offered Prateek a senior manager position (to lead his R&D department) with a really impressive pay package, much higher than his current one. Kritikas Inclusion in the Team After much deliberation on the ongoing events, Sachin decided to relinquish his role as project head and hire someone from outside the firm to help Alpha Tech effectively handle the chatbot project and bring it back on track. Kritika Gupta joined Alpha Tech as the new project manager. Kritika was highly qualified with BTech, MTech, and MBA degrees from some of the leading institutes in India and the United States. She also had two years experience working in New Jersey, and three years in a startup in Bengaluru. She had undergone training (during her engineering education) and had also worked in cutting-edge technology-related projects involving AI, machine learning, IoT, robotics, chatbots applications, virtual reality, and augmented reality. 19 She had been interested in project management since her MBA days and had undertaken projects both during her MBA and work experience where she was exposed to some of the latest project management techniques. Agile methodology fascinated her the most. Given her qualifications and experiences, Alpha Tech leadership, especially Sachin, was highly optimistic she would be able to do justice to her new assignment. Based on her own analysis after taking charge as head of the chatbot project and on detailed discussions with the team members about the ongoing challenges that the project was facing, Kritika realized that the initial challenge was to streamline and structure the project with a focus on scheduling, monitoring, and meeting timelines. She decided to apply Scrum methodology to address the problems of uncertainty and unpredictability in the project. She discussed with the team members the benefits and challenges associated with Scrum methodology and ensured members that Scrum would help this project address all the obstacles. The entire project would be done in small cycles called sprints, and a team meeting would be held daily to discuss current tasks and roadblocks. Kritika was a workaholic and very passionate about new technologies. She wanted results and found it difficult to tolerate delays and substandard work. She expected everyone to follow her pace and match her standards of work.

Team Differences Come to the Fore While Sachin was happy to step down as project head to make way for Kritika, others in the team were apprehensive, even negative about her inclusion and her ways of working. Some members did not like the idea of someone from outside leading the team when capable people internally could have taken up the leadership mantle. Kritikas exemplary educational background, skill sets, and working style caused disruption and invoked mixed responses from certain members. Sachin admired her devotion to work and had so much trust in her abilities that he did not give much consideration to other team members who raised grievances or doubts related to her working style. Soon, the teams different educational and sociocultural backgrounds, work experiences, work styles, mindsets, and career objectives came to fore after Kritikas arrival. Siddharths and Raghvendras global exposure helped them keep pace with Kritikas approach. Prateek had always been seen as a tech prodigy and authority in his work domains, but Kritika believed this was not enough and his skills needed to be adjusted to the project requirements. She felt Prateek was over-valued and needed to contribute collaboratively, to step down from his high pedestal and behave like an obedient team member. Prateek was offended that his involvement and integrity were being questioned. Kritika felt that motivating and engaging the project team was really challenging. Since successful agile project management demands that team members have a common goal and strong commitment to excellence, Kritika was in a dilemma regarding whether application of an agile project management methodology like Scrum would be successful in the chatbot project?

Conclusion Though Sachin had faith in Kritika and in the other team members abilities, he was not entirely convinced with the way things were evolving in the chatbot project and was worried whether his firm would be able to effectively deliver a timely project to MyApparel. Given the recent changes in leadership, changing work styles, members priorities, and the high level of uncertainty associated with the chatbot project, Sachin was somewhat confused and pondered where things had gone wrong and how to proceed. Another person who was unclear about the future of the project, and his own career path, was Prateek. Though he wanted to contribute to Alpha Techs success, remaining there meant making difficult sacrifices. As well as the job offer from MyApparel to join their R&D team, Guruprasad continued to try to entice Prateek back to Crudle Labs. In one recent meeting, Guruprasad proclaimed, I have yet to find a replacement for you. It is very difficult to replace a talent like yours. Prateek still had a soft spot for his close friend, Sachin, and was aware that his exit would have significant implications for Alpha Tech. He had to make a choice between friendship and professional growth.

Questions

Q1: Critically review Alpha-Tech company and their handling of Chatbot project, their approach to team management, leadership and stakeholder management. What was successful and what was challenging? Q2: What project management tools would be most beneficial for Chatbot project and why? Would you recommend a specific, or a combination of project management method(s)/technique(s)- justify your choice.