Over the last several years, Forstar Aircraft Engines hasrenewed its overall commitment to quality, speed, andcost-effectiveness in order to maintain its status as a financialand technological leader in the industry. As the industry hasbecome more competitive, and the advantage enjoyed by Forstar hasdecreased, there has been an emphasis from management on threequality improvement goals:

Improving product quality
Improving design and manufacturing speed
Reducing losses from the shop floors
The losses -- associated with the scrap, rework, and repair ofpoorly designed or poorly machined parts -- have cost Forstar toomuch over the years, both financially and in strained relationsbetween Design and Manufacturing. All too often, these twodepartments at Forstar argue over the blame for losses in front ofthe MRB (Materials Review Board). Such encounters have not helpedto improve relations.

Recently, however, there have been signs that change may becoming. For one thing, Forstar's President proclaimed in a speechlast month that many American companies "will no doubt soon move toparallel operations." Forstar still develops and improves parts "inseries." This means that each part passes from Design toManufacturing, and then to various finishing operations.

Changing over to parallel operations would mean that Design andManufacturing would have to work together more to interactivelyevaluate the performance and design of a part as it is developed.Such a change would be no small matter for Forstar to undertake,especially in light of the strained relations between Design andManufacturing. Nonetheless, many managers at Forstar took thepresident's speech, which was published internally in Forstar'smonthly newsletter, as a sign that Forstar might be preparing for amajor leap to parallel operations in some of its new plants.

Another signal came last month when the Vice President of DesignEngineering approached the Vice President of ManufacturingProduction, suggesting that they convene a team of managers todevelop a plan for how the two departments might work together tomeet the three quality improvement goals. They asked managers fromDesign, Manufacturing, Sourcing, and Quality to choose one sectionmanager each to attend a meeting to discuss implementing acooperative "Common Measures" program.

The four section managers that were chosen are:

L. Wilkins Design Engineering

H. Ansel Manufacturing Production

L. Berenson Continuous Quality Improvement

T. Donahue - Sourcing

These four have been asked to meet with D. Holloway, a specialconsultant from Manufacturing (with previous experience in bothQuality and Design). The group of five has been tasked withagreeing on a plan that will move Forstar toward its three qualityimprovement goals, and improve relations between departments.

The four issues that the group must resolve are thefollowing:

How will the Common Measures team be managed?
Where will the money come from to fund Common Measures?
How will the results of the program be measured?
What time commitment will the managers make to the Common Measuresproject?

If they can reach general agreement on these four issues, thenCommon Measures teams will be set up for each Forstar division(e.g. - airfoils) using today's team as a model.

General agreement means that only four out of five peoplepresent need to agree on all four issues, though unanimousagreement would send a more powerful message to management.

If general agreement is not reached, the VP's will likely goahead themselves and make a declsion on how to implement CommonMeasures, without the benefit of the team's recommendation. Today'smeeting may well represent the section managers' only chance toaffect senior management's thinking before it acts.

What advice would you give to five other people about to playthis game for the first time with regard to the process they mightuse to generate agreement on all four issues on the table? Whatother process steps could you have taken during the negotiations toensure a satisfactory outcome from the standpoint of the characteryou were playing while maintaining relationships (and build trust)?(250 words)

Did the participants in your group attempt to form eitherwinning or blocking coalitions, or both? How effective were theseattempts? Given that only four out of the five parties needed to beincluded in an agreement, what strategy could a party about to beleft out of an agreement use to convince the others not to reachagreement without them? (200 words)