How do you think the manager of electrical engineering should respond to this situation?

Project Manager

Word-Tech is a medium-sized firm that designs and manufactures electronic

systems for the mass transit industry. It competes with other firms to win contracts to

provide such systems. When Word-Tech receives a contract, it creates a project to

complete the work. Most projects range from $10 million to $50 million in cost and

from one to three years in duration. Word-Tech can have 6-12 projects going on at

any one time, in various stages of completion some just starting and others finishing.

Word-Tech has a handful of project managers who report to the general manager;

other people report to their functional manager. For example, the electronics

engineers all report to the manager of electrical engineering, who reports to the

general manager. The functional manager assigns particular individuals to work on

various projects. Some people work full time on a project, whereas others split their

time among two or three projects. Although individuals are assigned to work for a

project manager on a specific project, administratively they still report to their

functional manager.

Jack Kowalski has been with the company for about 12 years, since graduating

from college with a BS in electronic engineering. He has worked his way up to senior

electronics engineer and reports to the manager of electrical engineering. He has

worked on many projects and is well respected within the company. Jack has been

asking for an opportunity to be a project manager. When Word-Tech is awarded a $15

million contract to design and manufacture an advanced electronics system, the

general manager promotes Jack to project manager and asks him to run this project.

Jack works with the functional managers to get the best people available assigned

to the project. Most of the people are buddies who have worked with Jack on previous

projects. However, with Jack s position as senior electronics engineer vacant, the

manager of electrical engineering has no one with the appropriate level of expertise

to assign to Jack s project. So the manager hires a new person, Alfreda Bryson. Lured

away from a competitor, Alfreda has a Ph.D. in electronic engineering and eight years

experience. She was able to command a high salary more than Jack is making. She is

assigned to Jack s project full time as the senior electronics engineer.

Jack takes a special interest in Alfreda s work and asks to meet with her to discuss

her design approaches. Most of these meetings turn into monologues, with Jack

suggesting how Alfreda should do the design and paying little attention to what she

says.

Finally, Alfreda asks Jack why he is spending so much more time reviewing her

work than that of the other engineers on the project. He responds, “I don t have to

check theirs. I know how they work. I’ve worked with them on other projects. You re

the new kid on the block, and I want to be sure you understand the way we do things

here, which may be different than at your previous employer.”

On another occasion, Alfreda shows Jack what she thinks is a creative design

approach that will result in a lower-cost system. Jack tells her, “I don t even have a

Ph.D. and I can see that that won’t work. Don’t be so esoteric; just stick to basic sound

engineering.”

During a business trip with Dennis Freeman, another engineer assigned to the

project who has known Jack for six years, Alfreda tells him that she is frustrated with

the way Jack treats her. Jack is acting more like the electronics engineer for the project

than the project manager, she tells Dennis. Besides, I have forgotten more about

designing electronics than Jack ever knew! He really isn’t up to date on electronic

design methodologies. discuss the matter with the manager of electrical engineering

and that she would never have taken the job with Word-Tech if she had known it was

going to be like this.

CASE QUESTIONS

1. Do you think Jack is ready to serve as a project manager? Why or why not?

How could Jack have prepared for his new role?