Overview

: Samantha, Technical Director at Quantum Gaming, a video$-$game company, is conducting a scheduling meeting where she must ask employees to put in a serious amount of extra hours to meet a valued customer$$s request. In addition to various challenges of her leadership, a discussion of the Quantum Gaming's overall responsibilities to its workers, corporate culture, and work$-$life balance issues sidetrack the meeting. The employees pressure Samantha to make a decision right then and there; however, she cannot confirm their requests before talking to upper management. Profile: Samantha $$Technical Director, Has been a Technical Director at Quantum Gaming for $12$ years, managing a creative force of $40$ people.

Graham Hulbert$$Programmer$,$ Quantum Gaming$$has been in the company$$s design department for $21$ years and is a little resentful of Peters for holding the position of Technical Director, although he hasn$$t shown any ambition for the position himself.

Miranda $$Animator$,$ Quantum Gaming$$started working in the team two years ago after returning from unpaid maternity leave. Before that she had been working for the marketing department$$s design team, but found her position too stressful and creatively limited$.$

Tom Modeler$/$Designer$,$ Quantum Gaming$$has been at the company since he graduated from university last fall. He$$s still a little shell$-$shocked about being in the working world.

Backstory

: The company culture at Quantum Gaming is falling apart. The employees feel overextended on a regular basis. In the past seven months, there have been no fewer than three projects which have pushed the team beyond capacity:

$1.$The Back$-$to$-$School educational$-$games project ran over schedule due to $$miscommunication$$ with the client; Quantum Gaming had failed to meet spec requirements. The fall$-$out from this situation included pushed back deadlines; consequentially, employees lost four full weekends to play catch$-$up$.$

One of Arcadian$$s $($Quantum Gaming$$s biggest clients$)$ projects expanded in scope and three team members, Linda Kramer, Joe Berry, and Doug Courtier, ended up working two weeks of overtime$$late nights and weekends$$against a backdrop of inadequate recognition for their efforts.

In an attempt to build more business, the Quantum Gaming took on a multi$-$player online games project, even though their skills in this field were limited$.$ One member of the team, Mat Parsons, was burdened with the entire responsibility of producing a workable product. In the end, the project was abandoned and the client compensated by $150\%$ of money paid.

Recently, four employees have quit. Among them, Linda Kramer and Doug Courtier cited stress, exhaustion, and $$pathetic recompense$$ as the key reasons. Mat Parsons checked into rehab for a substance abuse problem after breaking down at the end of the multi$-$player online games project. Chronic insomnia and a state of hypertension had forced him over the edge.

Scene Setup

:

Peters arranges a $10$am meeting with one of her teams to discuss working extra hours for two weeks to meet the valued client$$s request.

The client, Arcadian, has put in a last$-$minute request to make changes to its new game$$s central character before the release date next month. The changes include

an overhaul of the design look and a reworking of the character's special features.

In the meeting, the talking points will be:

$1.$The number of extra hours needed to meet the team$$s deadline two weeks from now$$Peters will request they work evenings$/$early mornings and over the weekend.

$2$ The inflexibility of the deadline. This client is extremely important as their business last year represented more than half of Quantum Gaming$$s gross income. They call the shots.

$3.$The need for each team member to contribute, as significant aspects of program and design will be affected.

$4.$ How the team will be compensated for taking on the extra workload$$days in lieu, paid holiday, etc.

$5.$Rescheduling of other projects to fit around the new deadline.

Peters has a tendency to postpone decisions, so the team presses for an immediate response; Peters is also under enormous pressure from the client and upper management.

Scene Location

: Conference room at Quantum Gaming.

Questions to answer: $1.$ Provide an overview of the current dynamics between the employees and management at Quantum Gaming and describe the primary issues that are affecting their relationships and interactions.

$2.$ Identify and examine the advantages and disadvantages of the existing corporate culture at Quantum Gaming and suggest strategies for enhancing the organizational culture, explaining the necessity of these improvements.