Question
Team Problems ' Colin and Raoufhad been having one of their typical sidebar conversations during the meeting when an obviously irritated Heuri looked at Colin.
Team Problems ' Colin and Raoufhad been having one of their typical sidebar conversations during the meeting when an obviously irritated Heuri looked at Colin. "In my 20 years of experience, I've never seen such a shabby hardware design. A first-year college student could do better," said Henri, raising his voice at Colin. "No wonder we're a month behind schedule. Now we're going to have to spend more time and money on redesign. If you were in over your head, Colin, you should have asked someone for help. I'll review the situation with Jack when he gets back on Friday.That's it--the meeting is over.We need to spend more time working than chitchatting at meetings." Everyone else on the project team was somewhat stunned by Henri's tirade, but it wasn't the first time. They all felt badly for Colin, but others had experienced the wrath of Henri iu the past. Henri is the hardware systems team leader, and Colin is a hardware system designer assigned to Henri's team. Jack, the project manager, was out of town several days for a meeting with the customer, and asked Henri to run the weekly project meeting in his absence. After the meeting, Colin went to Raouf's office. Raouf is an application software designer. Colin and Raoufhave developed a friendship during the past year. They discovered that they both graduated from the same university, but a couple years apart. They are among the younger members of the project team, along with Fatima, the software system team lea\!er. "I'm gonna get that jerk if it's the last thing I do;' Colin told Raot1f. ' "Take it easy Colin.You're right; he's a jerk. Ever ybody knows he doesn't know what he's doing, and he is in over his head. We all have his number," responded Raouf. "But notice that Henri never behaves like that in front of Jack. Only when Jack isn't around or in meetings when Jack isn't there," continued Raouf. "Well, I'm gonna see Jack first thing on Friday when he gets back and tell him about Henri. Nobody needs to take that kind of crap in front of ever ybody;' Colin said. "Maybe you should talk to Henri first, Colin," suggested Raouf. "Yea right!" chuckled Colin. "What do you think Jack will do?" asked Raouf. "Fire him, I hope," answered Colin. "I doubt it," Raouf said, "Jack seems to always cut him a break, like he feels sorry for him or something." "Maybe Jack should be concerned about all the good apples, and get rid of the one bad apple!" replied Colin. Jack was back in the office Frid ay morning. He was just tak ing off his jacket when Colin appeared. "Jack, at one of the project meetings you said you had an open door policy, so I'm here to talk to you about a problem with Henri;' Colin said.Jack began unpacking his briefcase and had a lot of thiugs to catch up on after being out the whole week. He saw Colin was upset so he said, "Sure, Coliu, I have about 10 minutes before I need to meet with our contracts department to go over some amendments to the contract." Colin blurted out, "This won't take long. I just want to say that while you were out, Henri accused me of being a lousy designer iu front of the whole project team. He blamed me for the project being a month behind schedule. He always does this kind of stuff. Why do you let him get away with it? Nobody likes him. Can't you get rid of him or assigned to some other proj 1. Critique the case from a project management perspective. (Critique means delivering a critical assessment regarding the situation). 2. Note: what could Colin have done to prevent Henri's verbal attack? 3. Note: The case reflects poor project management in many ways ... Based on your critique, what would you have done in this case to ensure that effective and efficient project management prevailed?
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