Exercise Solutions

Exercise 1

1. Your team was using the participative decision-making process. This is evident as each team member contributed to the discussion and offered solutions.

2. It allows team members to brainstorm for a solution and interact with different solutions to create an ideal resolution to the implementation challenge.

3. The disadvantages are that team members may not be comfortable offering their opinions on the technology; some may be confrontational, while others may evade confrontation and side with the majority.

4. John s opinion on the installation was immediately dismissed and never referred to again in the discussion, so he may feel his opinion isn t valuable .

5. You could invite John back into the discussion by asking what his opinion of the other solutions is. John may need some encouragement to participate in the discussion after his suggestion had been eliminated.

6. Fred did a good job listening to the other solutions and then offering a combination of all the proposals. Team members who fall into the sage category are often great at analyzing problems and then creating a solution from what others have proposed.

7. Fred s solution is probably the wisest as it addresses the bulk of the machines to be delivered, the process of installing and configuring the operating systems, and the desire to use imaging software.

8. A tiered deliverable is ideal in this situation due to the number of PCs involved. It would be practically impossible to deliver all of the workstations in one step. By delivering the PCs over several weekends or after hours, production is not interrupted and the network traffic will be minimal for the network push of the disk image.

Exercise 2

Answers for John Umprheys

1. John is likely a motivation seeker. His desire to move into management after this project may be an excellent motivational tool. By assigning John more responsibility on this project, he can learn new skills to aid his career.

2. John is a motivation seeker.

3. John is a motivation seeker due to his desire to achieve and his apparent boredom with his talents with Notes.

4. Knowing what excites John allows the project manager to assign him to tasks that John will find interesting and challenging.

Answers for Sarah Williams

1. First allow Sarah to get comfortable in the project by assigning her to tasks that are not in the early stages of the critical path. By assigning her to tasks that she will be able to successfully complete, her confidence will grow. Once she is comfortable, she can be grafted into tasks on the critical path to underscore and test her abilities .

2. Sarah may be either a hygiene seeker or a motivation seeker.

3. From the information provided, she has a desire to learn and to achieve, but also seeks comfort in having a complete understanding of the product before completing any tasks.

4. One method a project manager could use with Sarah is to assign her to tasks not in the critical path. Upon successful completion of the tasks, she could enroll in a technical course on the product. A reward of learning may excite Sarah and enable her to accomplish more later in the project.

Answers for Sean Young

1. Assign Sean to projects that you and he feel he is comfortable completing. His forte is likely in the server side of the project, so tasks within that path would be best for Sean and the good of the project.

2. Sean is likely a hygiene seeker.

3. Sean is likely a hygiene seeker because of his desire to stay put in his current role and his fear of risk in the new project.

4. A project manager can use Sean s fear of failure to assign him to tasks that are closely related to his own area of expertise. By assigning these tasks to Sean, he will likely do his best to complete the assignments correctly and efficiently not only because he is qualified and talented to do so, but also because of his apparent fear of failure on the project.