Review the pre-assignment case study.

Case Study

You work in a large call center as the department supervisor for a team of four project managers: Rakesh, Samuel, Marida, and Sarah. Currently, Samuel and Rakesh are co-managing a high-priority project to overhaul the call management system currently being used by four satellite call intake centers. This project has been delayed several times. It is currently six weeks behind schedule and $120,000 over budget.

Rakesh comes into your office one morning completely frustrated. “I can’t work with Samuel at all,” he says. “I feel like he’s the reason that this project is going off the rails.”

He goes on to explain that he and the contractors working on the project find Samuel’s attitude to be very aggressive and intimidating. He devotes very little time to small talk and takes deadlines far too seriously. Rakesh says that just last week, a contractor was late getting supplies to one of the call centers and Samuel threatened to sue him. “It was just a delay of a few days,” Rakesh says. “We need that contractor to execute this project and now he’s really upset with us. That makes me upset and I feel like I look bad, too.”