Ellen Moore Case Study Essay

Karen could not identify potential risks, she heard about problems and a task force member told her of problems but she did not do anything about it or try to put measures in place to rectify the problems. After four months she asked in a meeting what the problems were, she could not identify it herself.

The estimated project completion date is TUE 11/13/13 with duration of 127 days. After leveling and re-allocating work along the project line, the project got delayed for 3 days so that the completion day moved up to FRI 11/21/13 (total duration of 130 days). (MS Project 2007)

They had controversial issues "during the first few weeks because they were clearly stepping upon each other's territory". Ellen understood that she was the co-project manager with Jack, but Jack believed that he was the sole project manager for SI. In fact, the Korean team members always followed Jack's instructions which are different from Ellen's. Even, Jack got angry when, upon coming back from business trip, he saw that the team members just followed Ellen's

• In this case Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group was tasked to come in and consult with SKS Manufacturing, an auto supplier, in order to fix their inventory problems along with other issues the company was facing. Maria Chen would lead part of the team for her first time on this 12-week engagement, but would in occur some difficulties throughout the first 6 weeks of the project. The Deloitte team has a lot of work to do before the end of the engagement in order stabilize the company and prepare them for a more radical long term project that plans to “reengineer” their business process. Most of the responsibility for the slow start on the project is resting on Chen’s shoulders due to the choices she has made during the first half

Ms. Moore is an outsider; she is isolated from the rest of her community. The narrator says, “This lady moved on our block with nappy hair and proper speech and no makeup. And quite naturally we laughed at her…” (Bambara 1). Ms. Moore does not incorporate the significant influence of the white community in her everyday life, unlike others in her community. For example, she wears her hair natural and does not try to tame it. Her knowledge and her peculiar look caused people to think strangely about Ms. Moore. The narrator states, “Which is just one of the things the grownups talked about when they talked behind her back like a dog” (Bambara 1). This infers that the adults are most likely intimidated and jealous of Ms. Moore’s refinement; however,

And finally, there is the issue of staff mismanagement. The supervisor, Keith Frazier, is only checking in with this department one to two times per week. Mr. Frazier is aware that Pat is making international phone calls. He is also aware that Pauline found a way for Pat to make these calls from the building’s elevator once he had the phone system modified to only allow internal calls. Mr. Frazier has also been fielding complaints from the accountants about not receiving their tax schedules in a timely fashion. However, he has failed to confront either of these issues. This lack of management can be attributed to the following:

Carter Racing and NASA examples discussed in the class taught us the value of the voice of dissension. While Stevens acts like the character of Tom from Carter Racing, Jack Bryant from Personnel Audit team would have been the voice of Paul. Carter should have included him on the team and listened to his experiences while talking to the employees and their managers. After all, his “on-the-ground” experience and intuition gained through the audit process was more likely to reveal the real situation than PAS or the brief audit reports. Just as NASA, after the Challenger Disaster instituted a rule that a launch could be vetoed by anyone in the team, including Jack in the conversation would have served as an antidote to overconfidence bias that would otherwise creep in.

The major issues in this case start with Anne not being familiar with the intricacies of politics, culture and communication in Jordan. She took a position in a foreign company in a culture significantly different from her own and did not take the time to properly familiarize herself with the host country. That is the root of the problem, but it continued to compound at her work when she did not do her part to clarify her role in the organization, ExportJordan. Anne also did not clearly understand the role of her co-workers and was not aware of the undercurrents of the situation and what was happening around her. She publicly demeaned her male assistant by giving him a derogatory nickname. She failed to notice the absence of her female coworker until someone mentioned it to her. She failed to realize that not everyone in the organization was there to further the cause of women becoming entrepreneurs and entering the business world. Nor did she seem to understand that Jafar’s influence extended beyond the company and that it unwise to anger him. The biggest problem in this whole case study is that because Anne was not culturally aware she misunderstood everything that was happening around her and her ignorance not only endangered her, but everyone she was attempting to help.

Ellen and Jack were both initially appointed as the co-manager to the SI project, however, from the organizational structure perspective, the power was not equally distributed between the two participants: Jack clearly had much more commanding authority than Ellen. With Andrew involved in a distance manner and

Once David had made the decision to form a team, he started by hiring Brian Doyle. Brian was a seasoned consultant and would be able to offer knowledge in high-technology. Although, David had been working on this concept for some time, he failed to ensure all the stakeholders had buy-in. He did talk to a few people within the company, but never had a formal meeting with Whitney to outline his goals for the team. Also, David expected Whitney and Brian to work on any crossover of stock analysis among each other without his assistance. However, due to the past one-on-one working relationship between David and Whitney she was ill prepared for how to deal with Brian or his role within JFP. David compounded this by not providing leadership, guidance or accountability when he

5. What is the next step the team members must take in order to complete their project plans?

Dr. Geert Hofstede created the first four dimensions of culture in the 1970’s after analyzing statistical data from IBM over the course of many years. In the 1990’s he created the fifth dimension after noticing specific cultural differences in Asian countries and their ties to Confucian philosophy. (www.mindtools.com) The five dimensions are as follows: Power/Distance (PD), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), Uncertainty/Avoidance Index (UAI), and Long Term Orientation (LTO). I will only discuss a few of these as they seem more prominent to this case. First, let’s talk about the Power/Distance (PD) dimension as it pertains to Ms. Myers in South Korea.

Though the issue looked like personal conflicts on the face, it actually stems from the friction between two departments fundamentally different in their working methods and thought processes. The fact that the two managers, Ellen and Ronnie, with different working styles leading these two departments has only compounded the problem. Ellen’s complaint was that Ronnie’s team is not sending their timesheets in time, which is leading to late payments from the insurer and shortage in cash flow. Even Ronnie acknowledges this but the solution appears to be different in each other’s minds. Ronnie is adamant that they just need more time, while Ellen is saying that genuine effort is required, not just time extensions. As much as

The project team must comply with their project managers (and the timeline) or else there can be delays leading to the issues mentioned above.

In this interview Ben Bagley asks Theresa Han about the difference between Korean and American culture. Theresa is a teenager who recently moved to the United States so she has an excellent perspective for understanding the differences and similarities between these countries.