Tom Bray

Tom Bray was mulling over today's work schedule as he looked across the bay at the storm that was rolling in. It was the second official day of the Pegasus project and now the real work was about to begin. Pegasus was a two-month renovation project for AtlantiCorp, a major financial institution headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Tom's group was responsible for installing the furniture and equipment in the newly renovated Accounts Receivable Department on the third floor. The Pegasus project was a dedicated project team formed out of AtlantiCorp's Facilities Department, with Tom as the project lead. Tom was excited because this was his first major league project and he was looking forward to practicing a new management stylemanagement by wandering around (MBWA). He had been exposed to MBWA in a business class in college, but it wasn't until he attended an AtlantiCorp leadership training seminar that he decided to change how he managed people. The trainer was a devout MBWA champion ("You can't manage people from a computer!"). Furthermore, the testimonies from his peers reinforced the difference that MBWA can make when it comes to working on projects. Tom had joined the facilities group at AtlantiCorp five years earlier after working for Electronic Data Systems for six years. He quickly demonstrated technical competencies and good work habits. He was encouraged to take all the internal project management workshops offered by AtlantiCorp. On his last two projects he served as assistant project manager responsible for procurement and contract management.

He had read books about the soft side of project management, and MBWA made senseafter all, people, not tools, get projects done. His boss had told him he needed to refine his people skills and work on developing rapport with team members. MBWA seemed like a perfect solution. Tom reviewed the list of team member names; some of the foreign names were real tongue twisters. For example, one of his better workers was from Thailand and her name was Pinyarat Sirisomboonsuk. He practiced saying "Pin-ya-rt See-r-som-boon-sook." He got up, tucked in his shirt, and walked out of his office and down to the floor where his team was busy unloading equipment. Tom said "Hi" to the first few workers he met until he encountered Jack and three other workers. Jack was busy pulling hardware out of a box while his teammates were standing around, talking. Tom blurted, "Come on, guys, we've got work to do." They quickly separated and began unloading boxes.

The rest of the visit seemed to go well. He helped Steve unload a heavy box and managed to get an appreciative grin from Pinyarat when he almost correctly pronounced her name. Satisfied, Tom went back up to his office, thinking that MBWA wouldn't be that tough to do. After responding to e-mails and calling some vendors, Tom ventured back out to see how things were going downstairs. When he got there, the floor was weirdly quiet. People were busy doing their work, and his attempts at generating conversation elicited stiff responses. He left thinking that maybe MBWA is going to be tougher than he thought.

• Critique Tom's preparation and first encounter with the team. What was successful and what was unsuccessful? Provide suggestions for how Tom can improve relationships with this new team.
• Using your suggestions for Tom to improve his relationship with his team, describe a new interaction in which Tom uses your suggestion, and identify how the team members react.
• If you were training a new project manager to take over a project like the one Tom Bray is in charge of in the case, what would you tell your employee? Why?