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Gemini Systems: Managing
From The Middle In A High-Tech Company Timm L. Kainen, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
ABSTRACT
This business case study is designed for MBA courses in Organizational Behavior, Organization
Change and Negotiations. The case follows a young middle manager who has very little formal
authority as she attempts to implement a new project staffing system for engineers in a high-tech
matrix organization. As the company rapidly grows, she experiences significant resistance to
change from section leaders, program managers and engineers who have become accustomed to
competitive behavior in an environment rich with opportunities. However, as the company
experiences retrenchment during the economic downturn of 2009, the change resistance
continues, but within an environment where there is a paucity of projects. The case shows how
Sophie grows as a middle manager and learns the necessary skills to be successful at managing
change and “influencing without authority”.
Keywords: Middle-managers, Influence without authority, Managing scientists and engineers, Negotiating change,
Matrix organizations
CASE A
n an August afternoon, Sophie sat at her desk pondering her next move. Her first three years at Gemini
Systems had been very challenging, but also full of opportunities that she had wholeheartedly
embraced. She had made her share of mistakes as a “free agent” middle manager with no direct reports,
but she had established herself as someone who could get things done. As a Project Control Analyst, she had
successfully and consistently improved many parts of the system used to manage the staffing requirements of the
multiple projects in her division. Her tireless efforts had saved large cost over-runs for her division and earned her a
reputation as one who did not shrink from tough assignments or back down from disagreements.
In fact, her outstanding performance had earned her three battlefield promotions as she successfully
navigated her way through an endless series of conflicts with a wide variety of technical specialists, project leads,
bosses and other project control analysts. The roots of these conflicts over project funding and staffing were
embedded in the company‟s matrix structure and were the tacitly shared value system that made up its corporate
culture. She accepted this work environment as her management reality and knew full well that it would not be
restructured to accommodate the new ideas she was planning to implement. She would have to push the
collaboration envelope if she wanted the usual protagonists to work within the parameters of her new and more
integrated system for tracking and managing the overall staffing requirements of the collective projects.
BACKGROUND
Gemini Systems began as a small independent software development company working on U.S.
government defense contracts. In 2004, it was acquired by Scorpio Inc., a large defense contractor that was
expanding its software systems capabilities. Gemini had been an attractive acquisition primarily because of its
talented engineers. As such, the Gemini team of engineers and their support staff were allowed to operate as an
autonomous group within Scorpio Inc. The only difference was that the Gemini CEO would report to top
management at Scorpio.
O
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Scorpio quickly began to funnel more projects to Gemini and it rapidly grew to 400 employees who were
spread throughout three different locations within the United States. This larger talent pool also allowed Gemini to
take on larger and more complex projects. However, success came with a price. The old system for staffing, funding
and monitoring projects became increasingly difficult to maintain. Since these processes were built for the original
smaller organization, they were becoming outdated in the newly expanded company. Additionally, while Gemini
still operated independently, Scorpio‟s more bureaucratic reporting procedures were beginning to make new
demands on how the Gemini group reported its financial numbers as well as other project data. Gemini realized it
would need to adapt and change its current operation if it was going to be able to operate successfully and compete
in this new world of million dollar projects.
Division A, the largest of the three divisions within Gemini, was having the most difficulty in making
adjustments. This group had a history of being the most successful division within the Gemini group. It had rapidly
doubled in size to about 120 people within the last few years. As such, it felt more entitled to handle projects in its
own way.
As shown in Exhibit 1, Division A was comprised of Directorate 1, Directorate 2, and Directorate 3. Each
directorate represented a certain technological expertise and worked to solve customers‟ problems in that field. The
engineers in each division would be assigned to the division that was their best fit based on their individual technical
skills and knowledge. Furthermore, each of the three directorates was further broken into two individual sections
which further segmented the engineers according to their technological expertise. Each section would have a section
leader and then a number of engineers that reported to them. The company organization chart was a matrix structure
where the engineers were assigned to projects within their own directorate, as well as the other directorates as
projects had certain technological needs arise. As such, they had two bosses – their functional section leader and the
manager of the project to which they were assigned.
Exhibit 1: Division “A” Organization Chart
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
Division A
Directorate 1 Directorate 2 Directorate 3
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
Sophie, PCA Kristin, PCA Lauren, PCA
PCA’s
Admin Assistants
BUSOps
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
Division ADivision A
Directorate 1Directorate 1 Directorate 2Directorate 2 Directorate 3Directorate 3
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 1
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
SW Engineer 1
SW Engineer 2
Test Engineer 1
Test Engineer 2
Algorithms Engineer 1
Algorithms Engineer 2
Section 2
Sophie, PCA Kristin, PCA Lauren, PCA
PCA’s
Admin Assistants
BUSOps
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THE BUSINESS OPERATIONS GROUP
Sophie was part of the Business Operations Group which was a staff support unit for the technical
directors, section leaders and project managers (PM‟s) in the three Directorates. The BOG assigned technical
specialists and engineers to the various projects and monitored project costs, and performance efficiencies against
pre-established parameters. By providing financial information to both PM‟s and the section leads within the matrix
organization, they were a critical part of the control system for both the Gemini group and Scorpio Inc. Within each
of the three directorates, one person from the business operation group specifically worked on that directorate‟s
projects. This person was called a project control analyst (PCA). Within Division A, there were three PCA‟s:
Sophie who was responsible for Directorate 1, Kristin who was responsible for Directorate 2, and Lauren who was
responsible for Directorate 3.
Each PCA used an excel tool called the “staffing planner”. It contained a tab for each project where the
staffing plan could be mapped out and expenses tracked. This was useful to not only report data back to the
customer, but also to make sure that any given project was not over or under spending. At the front of each work
book, there was a rollup sheet which linked to the multiple excel pages and illustrated the allocations for each staff
member per month so that the PCA could see the project to which each member was allocated and whether the
project was over or under staffed. Since Division A was a matrix organization, it was not unusual for various
engineers to be assigned to multiple projects in multiple directorates. This forced the PCA to have an additional tab
on the excel worksheet entitled „other directorate‟ where these concurrent assignments could be logged. This extra
tab was needed to confirm that all of the available financial and human resources were being used to maximize
profit and assigned to the appropriate projects to maximize efficiency.
At the end of every month, each PCA would have a meeting with their individual directorate, which
included the directorate manager and the section leads, in order to update the staffing plans for their projects and
allocate staff members based on the different project needs. The PCA would then look at the rollup page to make
sure there were no staffing conflicts for the month ahead. Changes to the staffing plans would often affect other
PCA‟s projects within the division. In order to ensure that all changes were accurately captured, the PCA‟s had to
constantly communicate with each other. This way the PCA‟s could verify that the changes were acceptable and
reported to the PM in charge of the project. This process began during the last two weeks of the month and had to
be completed before the month was up in order for the staff members to know what they would be working on in a
timely manner. The process was not particularly well organized because each PCA worked individually until it was
time to combine and rectify all of the information at the month:
End of the Month Sequence
1. Last week of the month, work with PM‟s to update projects to spend out correctly and request any additional staff that they needed
2. Meet with directorates to go over staffing conflicts that arose from the new staffing requests 3. Send any updates that were made to a separate workbook to the PCA responsible 4. If meetings already happened and a PCA sends additional changes, then meet with their directorate to
discuss again and resolve if necessary
Communication was essential because while the section leads were responsible for staffing the engineers in
their section, the PM‟s were responsible for staffing their own projects. It was the PM‟s job to have all staffing
requests in before the staffing meeting. It was during the meeting that the section leads would make the call as to
which staffing requests from the PM‟s were to be accepted. After the meeting, any changes that were made or
requests that were rejected needed to be communicated back to the PM‟s so they could go back to the drawing board
if necessary. If a PM absolutely needed a certain engineer and could not get him or her, it was taken up to their
section lead to work it out with the appropriate parties. If the section leads could not work it out, it was then the
directorate manager‟s say as to where the engineer would be staffed. If the conflict could not be resolved at that
level, then it was the Division A manager who would step in and make the final call depending on the priorities of
the division. The hope was that the conflict would not have to escalate to the division manager, but lately with the
lack of communication, this was happening more frequently.
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Whatever projects Gemini worked on, it did so as an outside contractor. As such, it billed customers by the
labor hours for all employees working on any given project within a prescribed timeframe. Having all the financial
information and staffing allocations rolled up at the end of the month for each division was critical. Upper
management and the CEO needed an accurate accounting of all division activity to get a complete picture of how
each division was tracking against its goals. In addition to measuring overall efficiency, this data allowed
management to assess needs for additional hiring and determine if they had enough funded backlog to cover the cost
of maintaining the current staff. It also allowed for the estimation of how much additional work they may be able to
take on as new business.
SOPHIE’S BACKGROUND
Sophie started at Gemini as an administrative assistant shortly after graduating from college. Her father, a
chief engineer at Scorpio, had learned of the job opening. During her first year, Sophie put in long hours, learned
how the systems operated and took on extra responsibilities where ever she could find them. Toward the end of that
year, she learned of an opening within her division for a PCA. There were two PCA‟s within the division, one for
each directorate, and now one of them was leaving the company and would need to be replaced. Sophie, knowing
she had the skills for the job, went to her boss, Sam, and told him of her interest in the position, citing the fact that
she had already learned how the systems operated during the last year. She also argued that promoting her would set
a good precedent and establish a career path for other motivated administrative assistants within the company. This
last point was important since Gemini had traditionally been concerned with only the engineers‟ career paths. Sophie
argued that establishing a career path for employees in the Business Operations Group that lead to a PM role would
give them incentive to work harder and be a source of home-grown talent for the company. Sam agreed that she had
the capability to do the job and he could see the potential long-term benefits to the company. He decided to
recommend her for the promotion which would begin at the start of the following fiscal year.
When it came time for Sophie‟s promotion, it turned out that Division A was re-organizing from two
divisions into three. In addition to Sophie‟s promotion, Kristin, a five-year veteran administrative assistant in the
division, would also be getting promoted. Even though Sophie had actively pursued the job opening, Kristin was
upset about the promotion because she had seniority within the company. Sam, the assistant division manager and
head of the business operations group, did not want to hurt Kristin‟s feelings, so he decided to establish two jobs.
The establishment of two positions, as opposed to one, would also fit the new organization structure with one PCA
for each of the three new directorates.
As the youngest and newest member of the business operations group, Sophie was eager to prove her worth
to the company and start working her way up the corporate ladder. She had started at Gemini a couple of years after
the acquisition, but before Scorpio‟s corporate bureaucracy had overtaken the Gemini way of doing things. As the
two companies grew, she began to see even more potential career growth opportunities.
THE NEW STAFFING PROCESS
Along with the new division structure, a new process for tracking projects and recording staffing
allocations was also under development. A new software package for managing and planning the staffing of
projects was in the development process and Sophie was put in charge of its testing. Sophie was chosen to head the
roll-out of the new software to her division. Even though she was the newest PC, she had the best grasp of how the
excel spreadsheets and databases worked. Sophie successfully implemented the new workbook and process into
Directorate 1. She followed up by training the other two divisional PCA‟s (Lauren and Kristin) to use the new
staffing system. Throughout the year, Sophie proved herself as a PCA and gained the trust of the director, section
leads and PM‟s by providing on time and accurate data. She also showed her ability to dig down and analyze what
was going on with projects and what they would need to spend out properly.
Sophie‟s long-term goal when joining Gemini was to eventually become a PM for the company and to do
so by going back to school for her MBA. Keeping her aspirations of PM in mind while at her PCA position, Sophie
approached other PM‟s within the group who were overwhelmed with work and offered to help offload some of
their work. At the end of the year when Sophie went in for her annual review with Sam, she had taken on a number
of additional duties and tasks that a PCA normally did not do. She was hoping this extra activity would help prove
her worth to the company and further develop her career path, which it did.
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During their evaluation meeting, she and Sam formulated a new career growth path for her. It went from
PCA to Deputy PM (DPM), and eventually on to PM. They agreed to allow Sophie to be the DPM on one or two
smaller projects. As DPM, Sophie would now do all the internal PM-type roles of keeping the project on task,
ensuring that milestones and deliverables were met. The only difference between her position as Deputy PM and the
PM on the project is that the main PM would still continue to be the customer point of contact. Gemini‟s staffing
pay scale and titles were different from those at Scorpio, so there was no title within the organizational matrix which
fit this new position for Sophie; so instead, she was given a promotion from PCA II to PCA III.
THE NEW STAFFING PROCESS DEVELOPS NEW ISSUES
Sophie had been a PCA within Division A for about a year when the issues with the staffing process started
to become an apparent problem for the company. The staffing allocation process was initially handling the needs of
the division, but as Division A grew in size and more contracts were awarded, it became increasingly difficult for
the PCA‟s to communicate with one another. At the end of each month, the PM‟s and the Section Leads would
communicate staffing updates to each of the three PCA‟s. Often times, these updates would affect more then one
directorate, so it was the PCA‟s job to communicate with the other PCA who was being affected.
This often did not happen and the staffing updates were not getting captured accurately. As a result, the
projects started to suffer. PM‟s were losing employees that were critical to their projects because needs were not
getting recognized by the Section Leaders whose main concern was to have all of the engineers in their group staffed
at 100%. The right employees were not working on the right projects because PM‟s did not realize that they needed
to request the PCA‟s to assign them. Projects started to be over or under spent and the division overhead was taking
a huge hit due to the miscommunication.
After all staffing inputs had been recorded in the staffing planners, the PCA‟s would then meet with the
section leaders to de-conflict any of their staff who were over or under 100% allocated. Instead of having one
meeting with the section leads, there had to be multiple meetings because the section leaders did not have a grasp on
all of the projects in Directorate A‟s needs. The PCA‟s were not able to help either because they also were not
aware of the status of projects in other divisions, so this resulted in the section leads having to scramble to find
coverage and then meet again once they had an answer. Also, this lack of knowledge caused the section leads to just
add staff to projects to make sure they were covered with no regard for whether or not the project budget could
support them. The meetings were often chaotic with the section leads arguing their projects‟ needs without listening
to what the other projects needed. Instead of compromising for the better of the division, they did not care if other
projects suffered.
The process was so manual that every time a change was made to a staffing allocation, the project page
itself had to be re-created, the rollup page updated, and then (if the project was in another directorate) that tab had to
be updated and the other PCA notified. One misstep and a request for a staff member could fall through the cracks
or an update could go un-captured by one of the PCA‟s. By the end of the month, there would still be a number of
conflicts unresolved and the engineers that were impacted would still not know what projects they should be
working on. It became increasingly difficult for the PCA‟s to get the PM‟s and section leads to make staffing
decisions in a timely fashion. This started to have a negative impact on the whole division.
It was not clear whether the section leads and PM‟s understood the importance of the staffing allocation
exercise, or that they did not want to understand. They kept neglecting their homework and did not seem to
understand the needs of the projects. This problem started to become painfully present to Greg, the Division A
manager, who saw the division‟s overhead budget numbers diminishing much too quickly and projects starting to
fall behind schedule. If Division A was going to continue to grow and expand in order to assist Gemini in reaching
its overall goal of 20% growth, then better management of the projects within this division was essential. If the
current level of project management performance remained unchanged, it would be impossible for Gemini to
compete for multimillion dollar contracts against large powerhouse companies, such as Raytheon and Northrop
Grumman. Looking to solve the management and staffing allocation problems that were impeding the divisions‟
growth, Greg looked to the business operations group manager to set a new precedent in how better management of
the staffing allocations could be achieved.
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TAKING OVER DIVISIONAL STAFFING ALLOCATION
Around the time of her promotion to PCA II, Sophie started to take on the responsibility of combining the
three staffing workbooks and updating the staffing line in order to calculate projected future internal sales
throughout the year based upon staffing allocations. This projected future data would then be matched against the
funding to give upper management a better picture of how the company was doing financially. The analysis allowed
upper management to see how much funding was allocated to cover the existing staff, the time period, and whether
there were any discrepancies between the projected numbers and the actual monthly numbers. Sophie was getting
settled with her new assignments when she started to notice a problem with engineers who were not allocated on her
projects, yet they were charging hours to her projects. When she brought this to the attention of the PM‟s, she found
out they were actually tasking them, but the updates to the staffing planner never made it to Sophie‟s desk. She also
began to notice that some engineers who were assigned to her projects were not actually charging those projects, but
charging hours to the division‟s overhead account…or to a completely different project. Again, when this was
brought up to the PM‟s, it came as a surprise to them.
Sophie went to her boss, Sam, with her findings in the hope that they could come up with an improvement
to better capture the planned data more accurately. The timing of Sophie‟s diagnosis could not have been more
perfect. Earlier that week, the division manager had expressed, to Sophie‟s boss, his concerns about the overhead
margins and poor tracking on projects. The division manager felt as though Division A needed to develop a better
system of staffing and communicating between multiple PM‟s.
Sophie explained to Sam her process of going through the staffing allocation exercise with Directorate 1
each month and that at the end of each month, her directorate was the only one who was able to allocate all staff at
100%, on time. Sophie still struggled with getting accurate and timely data from Lauren and Kristin (the PCA‟s in
Directorates 1 and 2), which made the overall process less effective. Sam was impressed with how Sophie was able
to tackle the staffing issues within Directorate 1 and felt that if the other directorates could do it the same way, then
the issues could be resolved.
The problem was that Lauren and Kristin were not really getting the job done within their respective
Directorates and did not seem to have the ability to do so. Seeking a resolution, Sophie‟s boss asked her if she
would be interested in taking over control of staffing for the entire Division A. He wanted her to develop a process
similar to the one she had created for her own directorate and make it work effectively for the whole division.
Sophie knew this was a huge responsibility but also a great opportunity as it presented her with her first real shot at a
management position. Her new responsibilities included the implementation of her new project staffing design. Her
performance on this task could either enhance or hurt her career path at Gemini. After analyzing the pros and cons
of the position, Sophie felt very confident in her ability to perform this task and was eager to prove herself. This
new opportunity was a great starting point and Sophie hoped that it would open more doors along the way to
reaching her project management goal.
FIRST STEPS
The following month, Sophie was going to take over staffing allocation for the entire division. Looking for
guidance, Sophie decided to set up a meeting with Jacky, a senior member of the business operations group, who
was responsible for the way the workbooks were currently staffed. Sophie voiced her concerns with regard to the
current way of rolling up the staffing, which she believed was leaving room for errors because the allocations were
being done manually. Sophie felt that if she was going to be doing the staffing for the entire division, it did not
make sense for her to go into each workbook individually and update each and every change that was made on the
overall summary page. After discussing the current issues, Jacky mentioned that he could develop an access
database that, at the push of a button, could read each of the three staffing workbooks, pulling out all staff and their
allocations across Division A at one time. Combining all the manual steps on the workbook into one Access project
would definitely allow all changes to staffing allocation to be captured in the summary page, which would then
show any conflicts within the division.
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CASE B
Though Sophie was excited about the possibility of a new Access database and felt her meeting with Jacky
had gone well, she did hear some unexpected news. Lauren and Kristin felt that it was not the way they were doing
things, but the management‟s unwillingness to cooperate, that was causing the issues. While it was true that
management was not fully cooperating, Sophie didn‟t see the issue. She had had been able to get her own section
leads and PM‟s to cooperate and get all inputs on time, so why shouldn‟t the other directorates be able to do it? She
thought it was the other PCAs‟ technique that was causing the issue.
Sophie designed a process that she believed would solve the problem. Two weeks before the end of the
month, she would send out notices that all project staffing planners need to be updated by the end of the first of the
two weeks. At the same time, she would send out a summary of all staffing allocations in Division A across three
months so that people could see what they were working with. As updates came in, she would resend the conflicts
list so everyone would be aware of the changes that were being made and how the people in their section were being
affected. During the last week of the month, she would meet with each of the three directors and their section leads
to work through the conflict list. Any conflicts that were remaining would be action items for people to follow up
with and resolve by the end of the week.
In the meetings where changes were made, Sophie would open the staffing spreadsheets for all to see and to
make sure any projects were not being negatively affected. By constantly communicating these changes to the PM‟s
and section leads and identifying any remaining issues, Sophie felt that she could start to coax on-time updates out
of the directorates. To gain a little more control, she also included top management on the email lists. Sophie was
confident going into the first month of staffing the division that with her process and the new access database, she
could tackle the problem efficiently.
INITIAL SUCCESS AND SOME RESISTANCE
The first month of staffing the division went fairly smoothly, with minimal problems and concerns.
Directorate 1 continued to function as it had prior to Sophie taking over divisional staffing. Directorate 2, which had
previously experienced staffing issues, went smoother then it ever had in the past. Dan, the manager of Directorate
1, and Brooke, the manager of Directorate 2, were extremely pleased and excited that all conflicts were resolved as a
result of just one meeting. If one of the divisions had a person who they needed to staff, Sophie knew the needs of
all the other projects in the division and could help get a staffing match for them. However, though two Directorates
were on board with the change, Directorate 3 was being difficult. Paul, the manager of Directorate 3, did not like
the newly implemented access database and was continuing to do his staffing in the same manner he had before
Sophie took over the new position. Paul expressed that he liked Lauren, his old PCA, and was accustomed to
everything being updated in real time, manually. Sophie discussed with Paul that although they preferred the old
staffing system, the new database and new way of doing things was the way it needed to be. Sophie stressed the
importance of Directorate 3 implementing her new process because if they did not have all their employees allocated
at 100% for the next three months. the division manager would not be happy with the outcome. Even though Paul
complained and resisted, Sophie was still able to get everyone in the division (including his directorate) staffed out
at 100% before the two-week deadline.
During this first month, Sophie got her updates and entered those into the three staffing planners without
giving much attention or thought to the other PCA‟s. However, Sophie soon discovered they were unhappy with
her. Lauren and Kristin did not appreciate Sophie going through the workbooks, changing the pages and updating
the staffing allocation without giving them a “heads-up” on the situation. Sophie realized she needed to get both
Lauren and Kristin more directly involved in the current system so they would not be upset or feel like she was
taking over their jobs. Once Sophie came to this realization, she started making a summary of all of her changes and
emailing them to Lauren and Kristin in an effort to let them know any changes she made to their staffing planners so
they were not left out of the loop. By including them in this crucial step, they had an understanding of the changes
being made, agreed with them, and now could send out the allocations to the staff members in their respective
groups.
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Throughout the first six months, the staffing allocation exercise continued to go smoothly. The process
was working and Sophie was able to meet the deadline and get all staffing completed on time by the end of the
month. The smoothed staffing line that Sophie updated each month, based on the staffing allocations, started to
become more accurate. The accuracy can be attributed to PM‟s and section leads getting their monthly allocations
in on time and the communication that started to take place after which helped the PM‟s to become more aware of
what project their personnel were working on.
However, even though Sophie had a handle on Directorate 1 and Directorate 2, Directorate 3 was still
giving her a very hard time. They were not providing Sophie with the division‟s staffing updates and not giving her
insight into their projects. Directorate 3 was still going to Lauren and having her update their plans. While both
Lauren and Kristin were told to direct the staffing allocation to Sophie so that she would be responsible for the
updates, Lauren was still doing the staffing updates. She did not want to give up the task and was encouraging her
Division 3 PM‟s and section leads to still come see her. Having the division report to Lauren instead of Sophie was
hurting Sophie‟s insight into the overall project status in Division A. Not knowing what was happening with the
staffing for Directorate 3 kept Sophie from having all the answers when the division manager came to ask her
questions about the status of projects. So even though the overall staffing process was going smoothly, Directorate
3 was still resisting the change.
A CURVE BALL
That November, Sophie had her annual review with Sam and she felt that it went extremely well. Greg was
very pleased with the progress that had been made and both Dan and Brooke had nothing but good things to say
about the new staffing allocation. The same could not be said for Paul as he voiced his displeasure with the new
system. Paul felt that Sophie could have taken more time to understand the current process that was in place and
could have been more open to other solutions for staffing other then the process she created. When Paul‟s opinions
became apparent, both Sophie and Sam agreed the current manner in which she was completing the staff allocation
was in fact productive. The problem was that Paul was acting like a dinosaur, not willing to change his ways.
During this meeting, Sophie, to her surprise, discovered that Division “A” was scheduled to be re-
organized into five directorates in January. The overall goal was for Sophie to continue to do the staffing allocations
until March and by that time, hopefully everything would be smoothed over. Sophie‟s main objective was to have
staffing coordinated among the five directorates and then transfer the current staffing allocations to either Kristin of
Lauren so that one of them could be the sole person responsible for Division A‟s staffing.
From January 2009 to May 2009, Sophie started managing the staffing across five directorates instead of
three. The last two weeks of the month when the staffing exercises were taking place, Sophie had little time to
concentrate on anything else because she was always updating staffing and then meeting with the five different
directorates to ensure all of the allocations were done correctly. Although the staffing was being completed on time,
Sophie found herself dreading the meetings needed to accomplish this task. It seemed like the section leads showed
up to the meetings not knowing what the conflicts were, not knowing where they could put these people, and not
having spoken to anyone beforehand! The meetings could take up to two hours and often consisted of nothing more
than arguments between section leads. There was no organization within the meetings and all of the section leads
were not working as a team to get all project needs met.
At these meetings, Sophie was forced to deal with section leaders who were technically knowledgeable but
only average when it came to collaboration skills. These section leads could not effectively negotiate with one
another. Winning was achieved through yelling, intimidation and politics. Since all of the section leads were
preoccupied with their personal needs, long-term solutions were overlooked and a number projects went unstaffed.
The result was that upper management, employees, and ultimately, some of the customers, became unhappy.
Initially, it looked like the toughest section leads were reaching their goals, but eventually their inability to negotiate
win-win solutions affected their relationships with colleagues.
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EXTERNAL FACTORS
During the years leading up to 2009, the company had been in a growth mode, so it seemed more willing to
tolerate the ever-present conflict and tension in Division A. However, in 2009, the economy had started to collapse
and all companies, even giants like Scorpio, were starting to see their business change. In previous years, the
problem had been to find enough technical talent to staff all the newly won projects. They had been hiring at a
record pace. Now the problem was that Scorpio would win contracts, but the government could not provide them
with the appropriate funding and the process was taking three, six, or even nine months to get the right amount of
funding. In January 2009, a new administration assumed control in Washington and certain Defense Department
budgets were being cut. This led to some of Scorpio‟s larger projects being dropped. Now, many of the engineers
were underutilized because the projects in Division A could no longer support them. As it became more difficult for
section leads to find projects to support their people, they began to search for potential projects in other directorates
and other divisions within the company.
This situation created even more conflict in the meetings. By the end of any given two-hour meeting, only
some of the staffing problems would get resolved. The rest of the week was spent following up on the remaining
conflicts and making sure the section leads remembered to follow up with other PM‟s on coverage issues.
Additionally, one of the five directorates was still giving Sophie a problem about getting her updates and using her
process. This was her old nemesis – Paul from Directorate 3 (and the PCA Lauren).
Sophie sat in her office in mid-May 2009 about to begin the staffing for the next month. She was dreading
the next two weeks and wondering what she could do to hold things together. As she pondered her next move, she
was counting on the negotiation skills she would learn in her final MBA course to help her gain the new level of
collaboration that would be required.
CASE C – EPILOGUE
The last week in May 2009, Sophie began a negotiations course, a course she needed for the completion of
her MBA. Sophie had signed up for this class because she thought it would help her attain her ultimate goal of
becoming a PM who was capable of not only the internal logistics, but also excelled at interfacing with the
customer. She felt that this class would increase her communication skills with customers and still solve any
conflicts or issues in a professional manner. So focused on finishing her MBA, it never occurred to Sophie that this
negotiations class would help her fix her staffing problems.
By the second week of negotiations class, Sophie experienced her „ah-ha‟ moment. Sophie now possessed
the negotiation skills that most other section leads and PM‟s at Gemini did not have. Using these skills during the
upcoming dreaded staffing meetings could help her facilitate, organize, and coach the other section leads. All along,
her job was to facilitate these meetings, but she never really knew how to grasp and maintain control of these section
leads while helping them make decisions. Sophie had often found herself cutting into the conversation in order to
tell the section leads to take it offline and making an action item to follow up later. Sophie‟s newly polished
negotiation skills would be perfect in aiding her in these meetings and the acquisition of these skills could not have
come at a better time. Sophie had been doing the staffing for a couple of years now and she had gained the technical
respect of the section leads and PM‟s. However, she now had an additional skill that would help her to manage
without having formal authority over any of them. This skill was particularly important now that things had become
critical for the whole company and tensions were running high.
Sophie learned that she was an ESTJ personality type, meaning that she liked to get to the point, get the
details, and get it done fast. Sophie started to think about the other personality types she dealt with and immediately
thought of Lauren, with whom she just could not seem to work. Paul insisted upon doing things differently and
always wanted to look at the big picture and take the time to map it all out, which was something Sophie felt was a
waste of time. As Sophie thought about this issue, it occurred to her that maybe if she had gone to Lauren in the
beginning and taken the time to understand her divisional needs, something could have been worked out sooner. In
an effort to smooth things over, Sophie decided to meet with Paul and Lauren to figure out a way they could all
work together. From speaking with Paul, she began to understand the way he liked to accomplish his tasks and he
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was able to grasp her staffing needs and tight deadlines. Next, Sophie took it upon herself to speak to Lauren who
was unwilling to give Sophie control of updating the plans. By speaking directly with Lauren, she was able to see
her point of view and understand that Lauren liked to have control of her own projects and the interaction with the
SL‟s and PM‟s in her group. She was also willing to take extra time to do it the way that Paul liked it done. Sophie
decided it would be best for everyone involved to let Lauren take over inputting all updates to her divisions staffing
planners as long as she did it by the deadline and provided Sophie with a summary of the projects and changes.
Even with this new change, when Sophie went to her meetings, she would still have all the facts. This new process
made Lauren, Paul and Sophie happy because now they could complete the assignments in a way they all felt was
comfortable; it also reduced Sophie‟s work load!
Sophie also began to realize the importance of doing homework and making sure that not only did she
come prepared to the staffing meetings, but so did the other section leaders. The meetings would move along faster
and smoother if the section leads were informed about potential conflicts ahead of time. Currently, the section leads
came to the meetings to find out what the conflicts were and then proceeded to argue until one was able to out yell
the other. They would often leave the meeting with nothing resolved. Sophie re-crafted the email she sent out at the
start of the staffing process to emphasize what she expected at each meeting and what the section leaders and
directors‟ roles were going to be. She next met with Greg to get him on board with what she needed and to have
him understand her process. Greg then made it a point to meet with his directors and stress the importance of the
staffing getting done on time and what he expected of them.
By the third week in June, Sophie was seeing significant improvement. Many of the conflicts were actually
being resolved before the meetings. Having learned to ask well thought-out questions, rather than make ad hoc
statements, Sophie had turned the tables. She was now able to help each of them to understand other project needs,
as well as the overall division needs. Sophie had started to lead and her staffing plan for the five directorates now
started to take root.
The new process works much better because there is an established timeline which the PM‟s know they
must meet in order to ensure there are no staffing conflicts. Previously, it would be a scramble during the last week
of the month to get the staffing allocations de-conflicted and that was contingent upon all PCA‟s working in a timely
manner. Having come to agreement on the process to ensure these deadlines are met, Sophie can now properly staff
all the divisions without upsetting any other employees by not notifying them of any changes. There is clear and
concise communication between all the parties as well as an understanding of the responsibilities of everyone
involved.
The staffing process was going so smoothly that when it came time for Sophie to hand off this system to
another PCA, the division manager did not like the idea of throwing a wrench into an already functioning system.
While the staffing conflicts were starting to get resolved, the staffing needed to stay as accurate as possible because
the company was going through a tough time with layoffs. Unfortunately, if people could not be placed on projects,
then they would be the next to go. Sophie agreed to stay on doing the staffing, but now that she had the process
running so smoothly that she felt it no longer was a challenging position for her. She had accomplished her goal.
Everyone was starting to understand the process and getting the conflicts resolved, so now Sophie felt like
she needed a new problem to solve. Does she keep trying to reinvent the staffing process by finding areas that could
be improved and creating solutions to those areas so she remains valuable to the company? Or is there some way
she can convince her boss to let her offload the staffing to someone else which would allow her to concentrate on
building her PM career? Sophie would prefer the latter of the two choices but is worried that she is confined to the
staffing position for the time being!
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Dr. Timm L. Kainen is a senior professor of management at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He teaches
MBA courses in Organization Design, Change & Negotiations. He is also a corporate consultant in these areas. His
applied research and publication activity is focused on the performance effectiveness of middle managers whose
primary training and experience is in science and technology. Contact Timm_Kainen@uml.edu to access the case
teaching notes,
