1. George is the project manager on high priority project within his company that is just beginning to get under way. George is negotiating with another project manager, Camille, to obtain the best-qualified team member for each project manager's project team. A team member can only be assigned to one of the two teams.

What are the criteria that both project managers should use in deciding who should be on each one of the teams? State and then explain the criteria. Rank the criteria on the basis of their order of importance. Explain and justify this decision.

2. Roxanne is the project manager for a start-up company that is developing to extract more oil from of an oil well after it has been classified as being dry. Abigail, Duncan, Nancy, and Robert are the four members Roxanne's project team. The team has never worked with each other on any other project within the company. Assume that Abigail and Nancy are good friends, whereas Duncan and Robert have never met or worked with each other. Abigail and Robert have worked on some projects within the company, whereas Duncan and Nancy are new to the company.

Explain the five stages of team development. Given the information in the previous paragraph, discuss some of the problems that could occur as the team progress from four individuals to an actual team.

3. You are the project manager on software development project. Two team members, Jody and Anthony, are debating which is the better way for the program recover from data errors. Jody favors detailed error recovery procedures that can be used by any module in the computer program. However, Anthony believes that each programmer on the team is the best person to handle the errors that his or her code might experience. Jody and Anthony are having a heated discussion when you walk into the conference room where the debate is taking place. There are several other team members present during the meeting.

What is the best negotiation technique to be employed in this situation? Justify your answer.

4. Jody is a project manager for a major telecommunications project for his company. She is managing a project that will increase the ability of a cell phone to access a cell phone tower without increasing the strength of the signal. It is a major technological breakthrough because if the project is successful, the company will be able to cut back on the number of cell phone towers and their associated electricity expenses.

Bob is concerned with who will receive the project information, what information will these individuals need, and whether the language barriers and cross-cultural considerations will be an issue. Who should receive the monthly project status reports? What information should be in the status reports? What are the language issues and what are the cross-cultural issues should Bob take into consideration?

5. Bob is project manager for a construction company. The firm is the general contractor and is building a skyscraper in a well-known Middle Eastern country. The economy in the country is booming, but the use of the internet is catching on slowly. The people in the country are wary of Western values. The citizenry feels that the proliferation of the Internet has its advantages and disadvantages. One reason that the Internet is catching on slowly is because the summers are very hot. Furthermore, most of the work on the building must be done at night when the outside temperature is cooler.

What communication technology should Bob use in communicating with the project sponsor and the project champion, both of whom are citizens of the Middle Eastern country? How should the performance of the project be reported? What are the risks that may prevent the project from being completed on time, and how should the status of the risks be reported?

6. Jeff is a project manager for a pharmaceutical company. He is managing the development of a new drug that will cure Hepatitis C. The drug is now at the stage where clinical trials are being conducted at several well-known hospitals throughout the country. The hospitals are providing valuable input to Jeff's team, particularly with regards to the side effects when taking the drug. The reports coming from the hospitals are submitted to Jeff in the form of emails. Each hospital is using its forms, and some hospitals are conveying information using no form at all. These hospitals are providing spreadsheets with little or no text describing the content of the spreadsheets.

What can Jeff do to ensure that the data from the hospitals participating in the clinical trials are uniform, so that the pharmaceutical company can gather and then process the data using a single database? What are the communication controls that Jeff should enforce to ensure a uniform data collection process?