Case Study: To Be or Not to Be: A Sense of Urgency at TestBridge

Directions

When reading this case study, focus on the various aspects involved in managing people interactions and what it would take to do that successfully. Try to identify the points in the case that either assist or undermine one’s ability to positively manage people interactions.

Case Summary

Description

Berry Landis is managing a turnaround situation in a small software company in the United States. Landis is struggling to align his VP of engineering with his new business focus and is trying unsuccessfully to manage the interaction. Landis is at a loss to figure out how to proceed with his plan for organizational change and how to handle a strong-willed senior member of his team.

Case Study Objectives

After reading the case study, you will be able to do the following:

• Understand the challenges faced when attempting to manage people interactions

• Understand the consequences of not explicitly managing people interactions on a project

• Identify various people interactions management activities and their positive or negative effect on project success

Subjects Covered

Managing people interactions, decision making, employee motivation, employee compensation, goal setting, communications, negotiations

Setting

The setting is a small software company in the United States that must undergo changes in software product direction and company organization in order to retain market share and grow.

Key Concepts

• How to communicate with employees during difficult organizational change

• Some of the issues that need to be considered in order to have more successful people interactions

• Some of the effects of decision making on managing people interactions within organizations

The Case

Scenario

Barry Landis was facing a tough decision. In a half hour or so, he was going to meet with Bob Rowe, his VP of engineering, for a conversation he knew was not going to be easy. Barry had just returned from a two-week-long overseas trip to Hong Kong and Malaysia where he met with existing clients in an attempt to generate potentially new business. His time alone overseas had provided him with an opportunity to reflect on all that had happened in the past year with the company, on his interactions with Bob, and on what he cared most in chartering a course for the future (turning around TestBridge and getting some buy-in from his team). He had almost made up his mind but was going to see how the conversation developed before taking action in any single direction.

Background

TestBridge was a software development company established in 1996 and located in the United States. The company specialized in testing tools for safety-critical systems. The flagship product, Testerlogic, had been in the market for quite some time and was used by a variety of clients in the United States and abroad. Typical clients used Testerlogic in their quality assurance departments to automate various kinds of testing of their software applications and to enhance existing capabilities in the areas of unit, system, and performance testing. The system was developed by numerous developers over the years, was architected by Bob Rowe, and was constantly updated to make it compatible with ongoing upgrades in operating systems, with newer database versions, and with enhancements to the programming language in which it was implemented.

Unfortunately, over the past three years the company had witnessed a growing decline in product marketing and sales and shrinkage in extensions of client service-level agreements (SLAs), which in turn triggered a large reduction in support and technical personnel and the departure of mid- and senior-level management. Left at TestBridge were a few sales and marketing personnel, some technical folks who handled IT infrastructure, and Rowe as Testerlogic’s primary care feeder.

It was obvious to the people currently at the company when Landis was hired, after a three-month search process, that other than refocusing their efforts on more sales and more market penetration, there would also have to be more “stuff to sell” in the context of what the software could do and whom it could serve. To that extent, Landis pressed Rowe to come up with recommendations on how he thought Testerlogic should be evolved.

The Real Deal Behind Testerlogic

Landis was a young software enthusiast in his mid-30s, with no formal training in software development, software engineering, or management. He was very outgoing and had a knack for getting things done, energizing people behind a vision, and driving them forward. He was quite outspoken and was one of those rare people for whom optimism ruled the day; things were never really impossible, and the word no only meant “Let’s try it again and get it done.”

Although Landis didn’t have any of the formal qualifications to turn around TestBridge, he certainly had a strong sense of what to do, as well as plenty of experience in the software world from working in software development companies in various positions, including head of product development, head of sales, and marketing, and head of operations. He had a really strong intuition for how to drive things forward. He was also very passionate about what he did and would never take on something he didn’t believe in from the get-go.

While being very strong willed, Landis recognized that to understand what people internally and externally thought about TestBridge and Testerlogic, he would have to listen more than talk, to ask pointed questions, and to sort out the details after he gathered all the facts.

He asked Rowe what he thought the system needed to look like in the future. Rowe said:

I’m not a businessperson. You tell me what you think I should be coding, and I will. I am pretty good at that. In fact, I’m probably better at coding than anyone else you could find. Over the years, I’ve built a lot of functionality for this system that hardly anyone is using. It’s a shame that the people who gave me these requirements are no longer with the company.

Landis dug a little further and asked Stan Neel, head of IT services, what he thought about Testerlogic. Neel said:

The system is built in a very solid way on the back end. Our front end looks awful. Clients, as well as internal staff, have always complained that our user interface needs a face-lift. It looks like a 1996 implementation instead of a Web 2.0 application that people are using today. Unfortunately, I doubt whether Bob has the design or artistic skills to work on the UI. The reason that it looks as it does is because it uses the design Bob put in place more than ten years ago.

Other staff said:

Today’s clients are interested in things being integrated on a single console in a way that is simple and intuitive to use. Testerlogic uses inundated workflows where people click so many buttons to go from one screen to another that they take a week to go through our basic product training. This strains both the client’s and our resources and doesn’t necessarily give us a good name out there.

A New Sheriff in Town

In addition to changing the direction for Testerlogic, Landis faced two other challenges within his team. The first was profitability. He needed the staff to recognize that more business had to be generated in order for the company to survive and to keep jobs. The second and most important issue was accountability. He needed people to understand that they would have to work hard, get results, and answer for their actions. Landis remembered:

I told people early on and very bluntly that whatever party they were in . . . well, that party was now over. If they wanted to get a different job, that was just fine with me. But if they stuck around and worked for me, they’d better be ready for a very different work ethic.

As part of his turnaround measures, Landis decided to focus on accountability by standardizing the employee compensation package and using a structure that promotes delivery rather than “seniority.” Before the New Year, he wanted to establish a compensation system that included base pay, commission for sales, goal-driven bonuses, and profit sharing. His goal was to reduce base pay somewhat and, using the variable components commission and profit sharing, adjust total compensation to be equal or higher than before. With this system, people could get more than before but would have to work hard to make the company successful. More money for the company would translate into more money for employees, but the risk of not making more would be shared to some extent by all. For those with high salaries such as Bob Rowe, Landis intended to reduce base pay by a bigger margin. To get back to what he was making before, Rowe would have to put his heart and soul into “fixing” the system to merit a bonus big enough to cover the difference. As Landis put it:

I wanted to get people’s buy-in that this thing would work. I sat down with each one of them individually to explain that we needed to change for the company to survive and what they could do to help. I rationally showed them that compared to before, they could make a lot more money. For this to happen, they would now have to focus on helping the company make more money. It was surprising how easy it was to get most of the people to understand this idea.

With Rowe, and some of the others, it wasn’t as simple as Landis had hoped. Things took longer than expected with some heated debates that didn’t finish instantly. Landis recalled:

Some of the people within my management team were very reluctant to accept the changes I proposed. They, from my perspective, were very comfortable living the way they had and didn’t believe in this change. It was particularly difficult to persuade Rowe that this was a good thing for the company. He was not willing to take any personal risks. He said that he’d been working there for 13 years and had already sacrificed enough for this company by taking a de facto pay cut (no salary raises) in the past three years while the company was on the decline. Others simply wanted things that we couldn’t give them: commission rates that were way out of proportion, bonuses that were not in sync with industry standards, or profit-sharing figures that were impossible to achieve.

Robert Rowe

Robert Hugh Rowe was in his mid- to late-fifties and was the VP of engineering at TestBridge where he worked almost since the company’s formation in 1996. Part of the original team that joined the company in the beginning, he was also a minority shareholder and one of the original architects of its flagship Testerlogic product. He was an educated man with a PhD in computer science from Georgia Tech, and he had many years of experience working at different levels in various companies around the United States. From a technical perspective, he was very good, but as he clearly pointed out to others, he wasn’t a businessperson and did not want to be. Landis remembered:

We went out to lunch with a potential client on a wintry day in November. The lunch group included me, Rowe, our boss Mark, and these two gentleman from a company in New York called BellCourt. During the conversation, the BellCourt fellows had multiple ideas on things that they wanted to be added to the system. They had questions for Rowe about how you could get the system to do certain things and about other customers who we currently serviced that could use these features. Rowe answered them by saying that he was sorry but he was not the business guy. Pointing his finger at us, he said that if they wanted their questions answered, they’d have to talk to Mark or me. Boy, was I furious.

Before joining TestBridge, Rowe worked for a series of start-ups, none of which survived more than a couple of years. In a casual conversation with Landis, Rowe remarked, “It’s interesting that none of the previous companies in which I worked failed because of me. In one of them, the product was simply immature. In another, we didn’t get the market segmentation right. In yet in another, the CEO didn’t know in what direction to take us, and in the last one, the competition was simply better than us.”

Landis’s first thought was that there seemed to be at least one common denominator across these companies, and it wasn’t product oriented.

Rowe was very good at what he did but took forever to do it. He was a perfectionist and believed that a decision should stand the test of time. Hence, he made few decisions. He was married, had two girls who attended Ivy League colleges, and was happy to keep on doing what he was doing day in and day out without changing a thing. Rowe recalled:

Landis didn’t appreciate the amount of work that needed to get done when someone turned a piece of requirement into code. This was what I referred to as “neuron time.” He expected things to happen instantly, or within a few days; and for me that wasn’t possible. I wanted to make sure that whatever I gave him was well thought out and developed. I did not want to turn in something that looked half-baked.

Landis also wanted me to take a base pay cut with the option that my total compensation could ultimately be higher if I met my goals. I had two girls in college, with tuition costs that went through the roof. As a VP of engineering, I’d never been treated like that, and I wasn’t about to accept it. I knew what I was worth, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it. I was the best programmer that Landis could have, and he knew it. I didn’t need others to tell me what to do. I was the one to whom people came for advice when they needed technical help. People like me got paid the big bucks so that people like him wouldn’t worry at night when something was crashing. It was my job to make sure the systems we built were top notch, and doing that took time and lots and lots of patience.

Goals, Goals, Goals . . .

When his initial approach didn’t succeed, Landis decided to sit down with Rowe to define a set of quarterly goals that could be measured and tracked by both of them. The following is the complete list of goals that Landis outlined for Rowe to achieve during the first quarter. The goals Landis had in mind were technical as well as business oriented. Landis believed that Rowe needed to take some ownership of the business side of the house and to be more management focused rather than code focused.

Q1 Goals: Draft

Bob Rowe, Role: Vice President of Engineering

I. Leadership and Direction

a. Work with Barry to create a product plan for Testerlogic that would take into account:

i. Existing state

ii. Market requirements

1. Functionality

2. Interface

3. What “big picture” direction should we go for?

4. Map of the current testing market/landscape/competition

iii. Internal requirements—what does TestBridge need Testerlogic to have?

iv. What would it take to sell/license Testerlogic as a product?

v. Possible effects on revenue (direct or indirect)

vi. To understand the above requires, at least:

1. Conversations with customers/prospects about future requirements (including Testerlogic licensing)

2. Conversations with TestBridge staff about future support requirements (e.g., requirements for offerings other than existing functions)

3. Feedback from the customer session held in December

vii. Costs (based on technology, architecture, hosting)

Product Plan consists of “big picture” road map, contains first steps, and also indicates what additional information we would obtain. It addresses things such as major features (not details), look and feel, architecture, etc.

b. System updates work toward new user interface

i. Templates/layouts

c. Additional functionality to allow customers to customize testing scripts

d. Improve interface for script creation/development

e. Functionality for teamwork testing submissions

II. Migration

a. Complete internal infrastructure migration from existing hosting company to a new solution

III. Existing customer support and work

Landis recalled:

If I had wanted someone to do simple development, I’d have just hired someone from India. I’ve had plenty of work done in the past in which we outsourced the development side of things to places where it could be done for less cost. I wanted Rowe to think more strategically. I wanted him to be in charge of design and scope. I wanted him to get a feel for what the market wanted. He was used to getting requirements handed to him by others. He needed to go out and talk to people to see what was needed. I didn’t care that he might have been four times faster than whomever we could get to do the actual coding. The message I wanted to make clear was that management (of which he was a part) does . . . well, management.

Therefore, Landis sent his list to Rowe for review and asked for his input before the upcoming Q1 (the first quarter of the year is January through March) planning meeting. Landis used the quarterly planning meetings to coordinate and synchronize staff efforts for the following three months. Landis knew that in the next meeting some of the system enhancement issues were going to be discussed. He didn’t want Rowe to be surprised. He was hoping that the two of them would have a chance to sit down quietly and to go over things once Rowe had some time to think. From Landis’s perspective, he was giving Rowe a chance to take his time, to step up to the plate, and to show leadership. He knew Rowe might need extra time to get his bearings and offered to help if needed. He wasn’t going to push him. He saw Rowe in the office sitting in front of his computer working on something over the next couple of weeks. If Rowe needed help, he knew where to find Landis.

Unfortunately, Rowe never showed up for the planning meeting. He mumbled something later in the week about working at a client site to fix some things and that he was sorry for missing the meeting.

One of the engineers recalled:

It wasn’t unusual for Bob to miss a planning meeting. He was often late or not in attendance. Whenever he did show up, he always seemed preoccupied with other things and had his laptop open. For the most part, Bob barely spoke a word and interjected something usually at the end of the meeting about some random thing that came up. I was not sure that Barry showed any emotion, but I knew he wasn’t pleased.

It’s Time for a Serious Sit Down

To get closure on the plan, Landis sent the following e-mail to Rowe:

----- Original Message -----
From: Barry Landis
Sent: Tuesday, December 4, 20--, 10:45 AM
To: Bob Rowe
Subject: Meeting to Discuss Q1 Goals

Bob,

Per my e-mail from last week, it would make sense to narrow down what you think could be accomplished between now and April. I suggest you use the document we created before with the draft goals (attached) as a starting point. Let's see whether we can review this and agree to a new plan sometime during the middle of next week.

Barry

A week or so later, after one or two reminders, he finally got a response from Rowe. It read as follows:

----- Original Message -----
From: Bob Rowe
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 20--, 4:00 PM
To: Barry Landis
Subject: RE: Meeting to Discuss Q1 Goals

Barry,

I continue to work on the designs for two features: (a) the ability for people to generate intricate testing scenarios between code modules and (b) the ability to convert export test cases from one testing platform to another. It is my hope that I can get started on the implementation for at least part (a), since I can reuse a fair amount of existing code.

Also, I have completed and deployed a change requested by one of our clients that we will want for ourselves (deployed at the moment only for the client's installation).

As far as changing the user interface, I continue to learn about the Google toolkit -- what I have found so far is, assuming that the design philosophy is consistent across different widgets, is that I will be able to create a code library that renders UI [user interface] objects that will also fit well within the Testerlogic architectural philosophy. Depending upon (i) the need for me to focus my attention on 'leadership', (ii) my time availability vis-a-vis my other tasks, and (iii) the desire to move forward with a new UI for Testerlogic, I might be able to start an implementation of that code library.

Please note that a new UI for Testerlogic will involve much more than a suitable code substrate for implementation. It will require a new design of the basic UI philosophy, some graphics design, and probably some new functionality to be designed and implemented, some of which I know how to do and some of which I don't.

Hope this helps — please let me know of other questions.

Bob

Landis was very disappointed. He thought that he had clearly communicated his expectations, but Rowe was still focused more on the technical than on the business side of things. Didn’t Rowe understand his communications? Was Rowe deliberately ignoring him? Didn’t Rowe really have what it takes to act more managerially as Landis was hoping? Was he wasting his time with Rowe, and could this situation be changed? Working on Testerlogic was a key part of his strategy for long-term company survival.

Landis decided to invite Rowe to lunch where he hoped that they could comfortably talk over the issues and agree on a path to move forward. He got them a reservation at the Golden Dragon. This was Rowe’s favorite Chinese restaurant that was close to their office location. As he walked over, Landis remembered to take with him the list of goals he had prepared for Q1, which he thought could serve as the basis for their discussion. When he walked into the restaurant, Rowe was already sitting in a corner waiting for him. He handed Landis a two-page document and asked him to review it. “What is this?” asked Landis. “This is a list of the features that I was hoping to work on for Testerlogic in the next few months,” replied Rowe.

They ordered their lunch, but it was obvious that they were looking at the issue from two different perspectives. Landis started by explaining that the company was headed in a new and different direction. This direction was focused on understanding the customers better, looking for what the market wanted, and getting a better handle on what existed out there so that TestBridge could differentiate itself from others. He then shifted the conversation to more practical issues having to do with Rowe’s inability to plan or execute accordingly. Landis recalled:

I brought Bob over so that we could have a friendly chat. Clearly, this wasn’t going to happen, or at least not in any easy way. We were a “little” way apart in our thinking, to be mild about it. I was going to have to push Bob for him to see how little was accomplished over the past six to eight months and how we needed to be much more goal oriented if we were to bridge our divide. Naturally, when I brought up the issue that had to do with his lack of planning and the lack of accountability, he was taken aback and became defensive.

Bob remembered he was hoping to finally show Barry that he was working hard to follow the direction he set for the company. He had been doing his best over the past few weeks to come up to speed on some of the relevant issues and to fulfill what he thought Barry wanted from him. He remembered the following:

I brought with me my to-dos to show Barry. I felt that I was on top of things, having completed a lot of the items that others asked me to do over the past few months. Barry wanted a high-level plan and wasn’t impressed with my list. I was trying my best, but the direction I was getting was probably insufficient to help me proceed. I was used to doing things in a different way. That seemed to work for the past ten years with all of my other bosses. Why should I need to change my approach when someone new comes around?

As the discussion heated up and accusations on both sides flew across the table, it was obvious they weren’t communicating effectively. Rowe felt betrayed. Whatever he said did not seem to be what Landis was expecting. Landis, for his part, was convinced that Rowe was either not listening or playing games. He hadn’t seen any real work from Rowe in the past few months other than empty promises and was adamant about him needing to change. After another round of heated shouting, Rowe got up and told Landis that if he was doing such a poor job as a VP of engineering, then maybe he was the wrong person for the job. He stormed out of the restaurant and left Landis with the bill.

Landis was puzzled. How could a seemingly simple discussion blow up in his face beyond any imaginable proportion? He left the restaurant with a very bad feeling. He felt frustrated that none of his efforts thus far yielded any real results. Because he was leaving for Asia the very next day, he didn’t have much time to think this through. He certainly wasn’t sure if he had dealt with the situation correctly.

Case Problem

The following are the main problems and decisions, related to managing people interactions, that the key stakeholders in the case study face:

• How could the interactions between Landis and Rowe have been managed in a more successful way?

• What should Landis do now to move TestBridge strategically forward with respect to enhancing the Testerlogic product line?

• What were the key factors that influenced the various interactions between Rowe and Landis, and what could they learn about them to improve their future interactions?

• What could Landis have done differently to gain a better outcome?

Case Analysis

Analysis Activity

Analysis Background

Let’s use the PEAK model to analyze and better understand the problems and decisions involving people interactions that Barry Landis faced. You are welcome to analyze Barry’s problem of what to do next to improve the TestBridge business through enhancing the Testerlogic product line. Reading Chapter 6, “Managing Product,” may help you better understand this problem.

(P) Problem: Barry Landis encountered several problems and decisions involving the management of people interactions. We will analyze the following two critical problems together since they are related:

• How could Barry realign employee attitudes, work, and performance to focus on business objectives?

• How can he better manage his interactions with Bob in order to influence Bob to focus more on business development through product management?

(E) Experience:

• Barry Landis has experience working in software development companies as head of product development, head of sales and marketing, and head of operations.

• Bob Rowe has many years of experience working at different levels in various companies around the United States. Rowe has worked for a series of start-ups, none of which survived more than a couple of years.

• Bob says that he is a technologist but not a businessperson.

• Bob may not have the design or artistic skills to improve the appearance and usability of the user interface for the Testerlogic product.

(A) Assumptions:

• As an outgoing, energetic, can-do person who does not readily accept that something he wants to do is not possible, Barry Landis assumes that he can get his staff to “buy in” to changing how they do their jobs.

• Barry seems to assume that he can get Bob Rowe to change his role in the company.

• Barry assumes that Bob has the knowledge and skills to do product management.

• Bob assumes that he can continue to do his job in the same way that he has been doing it with a new emphasis on features to enhance the Testerlogic product.

(K) Knowledge:

• Barry Landis has no formal training in software development, software engineering, or management.

• Bob Rowe has a doctorate in computer science from Georgia Tech.

• Barry knows that TestBridge needs more products and additional features for existing products in order to increase its sales and market share (to increase revenue). He learns by talking to staff that the Testerlogic product has an awkward interface that is unattractive and tedious to use.

• Barry thinks that one way to help turn around the company is to enhance the Testerlogic product.

• Barry thinks that he needs a VP of engineering who will focus more on product management and less on product development, especially implementation.

Solution: To influence his staff to tailor their performance to achieve business goals, Barry Landis decided to change the compensation structure. A portion of an employee’s salary would be based on the individual’s contribution to revenue (commission) and the overall company performance (profit sharing). In other words, employees would need to help the business achieve profits.

Barry decided to reduce the base-pay portion of compensation more for higher-paid people in management such as Bob Rowe. He also composed a list of goals that Barry should try to achieve for the next quarter. Barry thought that this list would help Bob to know how to focus his work more on product management as well as on the development of the Testerlogic business.

Assumed Risk: The risks associated with Barry Landis’s decisions relate to his assumptions. With respect to the new compensation structure, there is an underlying assumption that there is a direct and easy way to measure employee performance with respect to company revenue in order to award commissions. This may be more easily done for marketing and sales staff than for engineering staff. Likewise, engineering staff may become discontent and less motivated when their efforts cannot be directly correlated to revenue for commission purposes. In addition, when poor performance by one employee group impacts company profits, other employee groups also experience lower profit-sharing rewards and may resent the underperforming employees. There is a risk that subjectivity and inequity in the system, as well as employees who think they have no control over business results, will influence employees to not respond as desired to the new compensation structure.

Another risk involves Barry’s assumption that by interacting with people in a forceful and threatening way, he can get them to do what he wants. Some people will want to help the company’s business but may not fully understand how to change what they do. Other people may resent his approach and look for ways to work around or avoid him. Likewise, some talented and key staff may leave the company. Some engineering staff may not readily accept a boss who has not done engineering and who tries to throw his weight around with statements about the “party being over.” Engineers are typically problem solvers who like the challenge of product development and may not be likely to see what they do as a party. They may be more likely to accept change if the boss first tries to understand how they engineer products and works with them to find ways to be more time and cost efficient.

Barry also assumes that Bob Rowe has the knowledge, skills, and interest in doing product management. Bob has demonstrated in multiple ways that he is not interested in what he perceives to be business activities, such as talking with customers, generating new product specifications and plans, establishing product requirements for development projects, and estimating software development costs. Bob’s proclivity to quickly assume responsibility for design and implementation certainly raises the question of whether he actually has the ability and confidence to manage a product line. Bob may not be able or willing to achieve the quarterly goals that Barry has given him.

Analysis Questions

1. What is the main problem that you think Barry Landis has in managing people interactions?

2. How does Barry’s personality and communication styles as well as expectations influence the way in which he interacts with the staff in his company? In particular, how do these affect Barry’s interactions with Bob Rowe?

3. What role does Bob Rowe think he has in the company? How does this role differ from what Barry expects that Bob should do?

4. Describe the ways in which Bob does not seem to do what Barry wants. If you think that Bob is doing some of what Barry wants, describe this as well.

5. What would you recommend that Barry do to resolve the difference between his expectations and Bob’s expectations and actions? What needs to change?

6. If you were a software engineer at TestBridge, how would you respond to Barry’s new policies and communication style?

Discussion

In theory, it is reasonable to think that with the new compensation plan TestBridge employees will be motivated to work hard to make the business successful. In reality, this may not happen when one employee group has more control over the success of a business than another employee group. A compensation structure that includes commissions and profit sharing seems to be most effective when management has a measurable, understandable, reasonable, and equitable way to link employee performance to business results. Employees need to perceive or know how the work over which they have control does impact the business, that the impact of their work can be objectively measured with respect to revenue and profits, and that they will be fairly rewarded. You would need more information about how Barry Landis intends to implement his compensation structure before you could anticipate employee reaction to it. As the case study indicates, some employees are likely to resist change, while others embrace it.

There is a well-known quote from Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark in which Marcellus laments, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Shakespeare). Though he does not know the details, Marcellus perceives that there is something wrong at the court of the new king of Denmark (Hamlet’s stepfather). Likewise, you may wonder whether something is not quite right with TestBridge’s organizational structure. If Bob Rowe is the VP of engineering, why hasn’t he been performing management tasks? Other related questions follow:

• What is the organizational structure of TestBridge? How many people work for the company?

• Are there engineering staff members other than Bob Rowe? If so, who are their bosses?

• Who organizes and manages software development projects?

• How are requirements established for software development projects? Who performs this function?

• Exactly what is Barry Landis’s role in the company? What clout does he wield in the company, and why?

The case study purposely does not provide this information because it focuses on Barry Landis’s expectations and his interactions with Bob Rowe. To fully analyze Barry’s options within the organization for how to improve the business generated by the Testerlogic product, you could use this information. For instance, Bob Rowe may not be the best person to manage the Testerlogic product line. Bob may be better suited as a lead technologist or developer. Finally, you might ask why Bob Rowe has the title VP of engineering. Was he the first software developer for TestBridge and possibly one of the company founders? Considering Bob’s history with TestBridge would also help you determine an appropriate role for him.

Conclusions

Barry Landis is motivated to increase TestBridge’s revenue and profits, particularly through the evolution of the Testerlogic product line. He is enthusiastic, confident, and expedient, but his approach to interacting with staff is demanding and somewhat threatening. Barry expects his staff to change the way they do their jobs to maximize their contribution to achieving business goals. In particular, he expects Bob Rowe to transition from mostly product development to mostly product management with some product development. We might conclude that Barry’s style of management appears to be “my way or the highway.”

Employee reaction to Barry’s demand for change, to be enforced through a new compensation structure, is mixed. Some people seem to understand what to do and are willing to try to change, and others do not necessarily buy in to the need for change. In particular, Bob Rowe does not agree with the reduction of his base pay and is not interested in changing the tasks that he performs. Bob does not seem able or willing to adjust his tasks and actions in a way that satisfies Barry’s expectations with respect to the new quarterly goals that Barry outlined for Bob. Interactions between Barry and Bob are heated and hostile. Barry does not manage his interactions with Bob in a way that satisfies either Barry or Bob.

Somehow, Barry and Bob need to discuss their expectations in an objective and unemotional way. Barry might start by really listening to Bob and through dialogue determine whether Bob is the most appropriate person to manage the Testerlogic product. In turn, Bob should try to understand Barry’s concerns about the Testerlogic business and be willing to consider whether he could, in fact, help with product management. Bob’s somewhat flippant refusal to participate in activities relating to customers is certainly not helping matters. As you will see again in Chapter 9, “Managing Stakeholder Expectations,” communications are key to managing people interactions and expectations.

Key Ideas to Remember

• Communications are an important component of managing people interactions.

• Personality and communication styles as well as expectations influence the interactions between people.

• When making decisions, it is important to consider the impact that these decisions will have on the management of people interactions.

Case Study: A Friend or Foe at Hanover-Tech

Directions

When reading this case study, focus on the various aspects involved in managing people interactions and what it would take to do that successfully. Try to identify the points in the case study that either assist or undermine one’s ability to manage people interactions in a positive way. Also observe how interactions impact short-term and long-term goals.

Case Summary

Description

Gloria Jones is the new president at Hanover-Tech, a medical imaging company located in Santa Monica, California. In the process of transitioning into her new role, her predecessor, Linda Pantelli, who was moving up to assume a role in the parent company, Hanover-Global, had offered to stay on as a part-time consultant and to support Gloria where need be on a part-time basis. Gloria is trying to manage the interactions with Linda in a way that is constructive, gets her what she needs when she needs it, and doesn’t cost her too much. She is having problems identifying what and how to put it in a way that preserves relationships within and outside the company.

Case Study Objectives

After reading the case study, you will be able to do the following:

• Understand the challenge of managing people interactions and stakeholder relationships simultaneously

• Understand the need to make decisions that require balancing opposing objectives while managing people interactions

• Identify various decisions that need to be made in the process of managing people interactions

Subjects Covered

Managing people interactions, decision making, managing stakeholder relationships, communications, negotiations, managing expectations

Setting

The setting is a small software company, which is a subsidiary of a larger holding company, in Santa Monica, California. The company focuses on medical imaging technologies.

Key Concepts

• Managing people interactions is an ongoing process that needs to be planned and executed carefully.

• Managing stakeholder relationships requires balancing multiple objectives, some of which may be in conflict with one another.

• One must consider not only short-term and task-oriented objectives but also long-term and people-oriented objectives when managing people interactions.

The Case

Scenario

Gloria Jones was staring at her screen in disbelief. She had just gotten yet another e-mail from Linda that said she was busy and wasn’t going to be able to review the agreement Jones gave her until the following Monday. Gloria didn’t know what to do. She was new to her job. She thought Linda could help by giving her the necessary assistance as they’ve discussed and agreed to before, but it seemed that Linda was too preoccupied to make any of that happen. She got up from her chair, walked over to the window, and watched the boats out in the bay sailing into the sunset. She tried to think through all the things she had done to make the transition easier, amicable, and trusting. Pinpointing what to do was a tricky situation, and she didn’t know where to begin. She left the window and went back to her desk. She tried to remember how it all started . . . .

Background

Three months before, as part of the reorganization at Hanover-Tech, Gloria Jones was promoted to the president’s position, which was previously held by Linda Pantelli who had now moved up in the organization to be the senior VP for Hanover-Global (the parent holding company that owned Hanover-Tech and a few other subsidiaries). HTC, as insiders called it, was a software development company located in Santa Monica, California, that had been in business for more than 30 years. It was a market leader in medical imaging technologies and was very well connected with UCLA’s and UCSF’s schools of medicine.

Gloria was an industry veteran who was brought over a year ago with the purpose of running the company. She had spent most of her career with Siemens Medical and McKesson. She was looking for a change, a new adventure, and a new style of living out west, as compared to the dreary life she’d known back east with its harsh lonely winters and dark, cold nights.

In her 40s and probably in the best shape of her life, Gloria was a single woman with a childish nature who liked to live life to its fullest. She was very professional in what she did, an avid learner who always had a stack of books next to her bed, and an early riser. Gloria didn’t believe in “wasting” time doing nothing and would keep her mind busy all the time trying to improve what was going on around her.

Linda, on the other hand, was a little older and a bit more experienced. She was a culinary expert who liked to travel (on company business preferably), eat well, and relax. Originally from New York City, Linda had a husband and three grown kids, who were now in college all over the United States. Linda was a hands-on workaholic with the attention span of a bumblebee (too short honestly to do too many things at once). She was a very amicable person who you could simply not like. She had friends everywhere in the organization and a quiet happy demeanor that made people like her. She made the people around her feel very comfortable and at ease, even when “bad news” had to be presented.

Not surprisingly, Linda and Gloria hit it off right from the get-go. They both believed in how things needed to get done and had no-nonsense attitudes. Over the next few weeks, the two of them got into a routine in which Linda taught Gloria what she needed while relinquishing more and more responsibility. Linda’s coaching style met Gloria’s expectations as it wasn’t too “bossy” and gave a lot of freedom to experiment, reflect, and discuss. Gloria remembered:

Working with Linda was very enjoyable. In the beginning she would let me “discover” things and then come back to ask questions, analyze, and think things through. Linda liked to role-play things with me. Every time we were faced with a tough decision, we used to sit down and talk things through where I would take one side and she would take the other. I found that to be very useful in avoiding costly mistakes when interacting and communicating with people in the organization.

As Pantelli was transitioning her duties over to Jones, they decided what role each of them would play once the transition was complete. Linda remarked:

I knew I was going to be really busy with my new position at Global. I also wanted to make sure that Gloria got the support she needed. I offered to help as much as I could and even to stay part-time (maybe 10 to 15 percent for the first six month or even for a year) to help her. If I could help HTC, I was happy to do so, especially if I got paid for it and if it didn’t take too much of my time.

Linda and Gloria both agreed that for the time being, at least until Gloria felt she had what she needed from a corporate knowledge perspective, Linda would be available to help her. Gloria put it succinctly:

I was willing to pay to have Linda still be part of my team. She had valuable knowledge and a lot of connections within HTC that would help me get established. She knew how to do things, and learning things from her was going to make my life much easier. I was hoping to keep Linda’s time to a minimum and figured that one half day a week would probably do the trick.

Things Aren’t Working Quite Right . . .

Gloria brought with her a new spirit and energy that seemed to help move things around at HTC at a faster, more dynamic pace. As she was getting more and more into the thick of things, she had more questions than answers. She still hoped that Linda could teach her how to deal with challenging issues more quickly. She had many small issues to discuss and many more things to review than initially planned because business seemed to be picking up despite the market’s downturn.

To help matters along and to make things a little more effective, Gloria chose to communicate with Linda mostly via e-mail, and when that didn’t work, she left messages on Linda’s voicemail. Whenever she would finally get a response, Gloria was pleased with its results. Linda knew her stuff, and her answers and critique tended to hit the mark regarding issues that needed to be handled and how to handle them. The real problem for Gloria was how to reduce the turnaround time between questions and answers from weeks to days or hours. She recalled:

I wasn’t getting responses from Linda at an adequate speed. Linda was a workaholic and an e-mail junkie. She couldn’t go five minutes without checking her e-mail, whether we were in the car, in a meeting, or in a restaurant. Naturally, I assumed she was getting all of mine, but why she was ignoring them, I really couldn’t say. In one case, I was working on a big contract and needed Linda’s input and review. My request for help sat in her inbox for more than three weeks. After repeated e-mails, voicemails, and reassurances that Linda was handling it, I sent it off to the client, without Linda’s review.

The relationship with Linda was very important to Gloria. Linda had friends in “high places,” was very connected to the old management team (some of whom Gloria intended to replace), and was still sitting on the HTC board of directors where she was very much involved in the strategic direction of the company. Gloria was also very realistic about managing Linda’s expectations with respect to getting paid and making sure that she wasn’t throwing away company funds for a “service” she didn’t really get (at least not in time) or that didn’t have value. Gloria explained:

I felt trapped. On the one hand, Linda expected to get paid for her work, probably more than I was hoping to pay her, not that we ever agreed on a sum. On the other hand, I was expecting to get something in return for that, something I didn’t feel I was getting. I did not want to offend her, but I was feeling very frustrated at the quality of service (or speed) of things. It was all amicable, which perhaps made it even more frustrating. I knew that in the end someone’s expectations were not going to be met, and I didn’t want this to happen.

Gloria knew that if she brought the money issue into the open she might get push back from Linda. She remembered Linda saying before she left that she closed the loop about staying on as a “consultant” with Jim Oliver, the chairman of HTC’s board. While Gloria was trying to get all of her “consultants” on the same page as far as standard daily rates, Linda’s requested rate was a “little” too much and simply not feasible. More than the money, Gloria simply didn’t know how to communicate with Linda in a constructive way. All she really wanted was either someone who would help when she needed it or no one at all. Gloria explained:

It was not very consistent. There were times where I’d walk into the office, and there would be Linda sitting and waiting for me. She seemed genuinely interested in helping me deal with some very tricky issues involving human resources, finances, or strategy. Other times, I’d bang down the door while trying to get her to react, respond, or reply. The lack of consistency was making it very difficult for me to plan accordingly and respond to clients (some of whom had interacted with Linda for the past five years) in a business-like fashion.

Outside Help

A few weeks before the Memorial Day weekend, Gloria spent a week in the woods in a cabin with her family who was visiting from Tennessee. She caught her brother, Drew, after dinner one night for a chat. Drew was a management consultant who always seemed to have ideas on how to deal with situations that Gloria could only think about. He asked a number of questions and listened attentively to her story. After a few minutes of thinking, he told Gloria he thought that she had to change the interaction she had with Linda to make it more effective. She recalled:

I told Drew the story about my interactions with Linda. He said that if I wanted to solve both of my problems, I should take a look at how to manage our interactions in a more effective way. He suggested I turn this into a project-based interaction where each “task” I had for Linda was like a mini-project, with timelines, scope, deliverables, and pay attached to it. That way, the rules would be clear up front; and if they weren’t met, we wouldn’t have issues regarding missed expectations. It was an interesting take on the problem, but I needed to sleep on it some more.

Gloria’s problem had to do with how to approach Linda on the matter, even if she did use Drew’s approach. She thought a few times of raising the issue but chickened out every time, feeling it might not be advisable. It wasn’t as if Linda wasn’t doing anything. She certainly did, and what she did was of high quality. It was just not as fast as Gloria had wanted it. Perhaps she should just say nothing and let sleeping dogs lie. What was the benefit for her by raising the issue? But then, could she really say nothing? What sort of message was she sending if she let it go on?

Gloria decided to approach Emily Patrosso, a close friend who used to work with her when she was a division head at Siemens. She trusted Emily and knew that, as a colleague, she might have good advice on how to deal with this. As it happened, Gloria had to be in Philadelphia for a conference, so she asked Emily out to dinner to catch up and discuss things.

Over a good dinner at Amada’s, a Spanish favorite of the two of them, Gloria repeated the story and the advice she received from Drew. She explained her frustrations and her inability to walk up to Linda and lay things on the table. Emily recalled:

Gloria was obviously frustrated. She had been facing this challenging issue for quite some time, and it was obvious she wanted to resolve it. Drew had given her some very strong advice, and having not implemented it yet, she told me she was not sure if she should. I liked Drew’s approach, but I felt I could come up with a simple way to enhance it.

As desserts were served onto the table and as Gloria was scooping up a golden crusted, Philly-style cheesecake with blueberry/raspberry sauce, Emily said:

I like Drew’s plan for helping you deal with the situation. I’d like to suggest that you enhance it even more by taking away the need to manage each task independently as a project and grouping things together. You could, for example, have Linda accept tasks as an ongoing thing throughout the month, within 24 hours of submitting them to her. But then you can set a cap limit per month, say 60 or 70 percent on the amount of tasks that she need to get done to earn her pay. You might not get the work done at every point in time, but you’d certainly be managing the expectations.

Taking a Chance . . . or Not

As Gloria was trying to focus her thoughts, she knew tomorrow’s board meeting would give her a chance to pull Linda aside and have a little heart-to-heart chat before or after the meeting. She went back to her computer to draft a message to Linda, but as she started typing, she paused for a minute to think specifically about what to say. It certainly wasn’t easy, but she needed to get this resolved one way or another and to do it in a way that was amicable, didn’t burn bridges, didn’t upset anyone, and moved her agenda forward.

Case Problem

The following are the main problems and decisions to be made, in the context of managing people interactions, as faced by the key stakeholder in the case:

• What should Gloria do to be sure that she makes a decision that satisfies her short-term needs but doesn’t hurt her long-term ones?

• What were some of the other options Gloria could use with Linda other than those suggested by her brother and her friend?

• How should Gloria handle her upcoming interaction with Linda to make it more effective and successful?

Case Analysis

Analysis Activity

Analysis Questions

1. What is the problem that Gloria is having with Linda? Explain how the expectations of both stakeholders factor into this problem.

2. Describe in general how Gloria solves problems and makes decisions. In what way do you think her problem-solving/decision-making process/style contributes to her problem with Linda?

3. How are personality and communication styles affecting Gloria and Linda’s interactions?

4. Now use the PEAK model to analyze Gloria’s options for making a decision on how to resolve the problem that she is having with Linda.

5. What do you recommend that Gloria do next? Reference your analysis in question 4 to justify your recommendation.