A Manager's Dilemma: Who Gets the Project?

A MANAGER’S DILEMMA: WHO GETS THE PROJECT? CMT, a leading innovator in the telecommunications industry, has a new hardware product which is under development with associated software. Henry Mathews, the director of software support tasked to choose who to be in charge of the new project had just taken a two-week vacation which left Dave Peterson to be temporarily in command of the entire unit. Dave Peterson is the manager of customer software support. He needs to make an immediate decision between Seamus and Jeremy on who to assign the project before Henry arrives. The new hardware product was estimated to have a low target price and requires inexpensive training because the CMT’s sales department had request a CD-ROM self-study course to be developed for customers of this product. Both Seamus and Jeremy have shown great interest in taking charge of the project. The culture at CMT accepts conflict that is based on doing the best job for the customer but with the intensity of conflict between the two parties, the project was behind schedule given the needed development time based on the projected product release date. Dave knew that both managers want to be in charge of this new project and both are competent enough to handle the project but agreeing to a compromise is almost close to impossible. When Henry returns, a decision could have been made which would definitely upset the other and he will still have to work with them as a peer. Seamus is in charge of the technical publications department which provides technical and user manuals and other materials for customers and CMT field staff. His team had a good reputation for translating terminology into more user-friendly materials that can be understood by those without engineering training. On the other hand, Jeremy Olson manages the software training department which offers courses that explain CMT Corporation’s software products and trains customers and company employees on the proper use of