Case Study: Office Communications Cathy Buford is the design leader on a project team for a large, complex technical project for a very demanding customer. Joe Jackson is an engineer assigned to her design team. It is about 9:30 A.M. when Joe walks into Cathy's office. Her head is down, and she is hard at work. "Hey, Cathy," says Joe, "going to the Little League game tonight? Ya know, I volunteered to coach this year." "Oh. Hi, Joe. I'm really busy," Cathy tells him. Joe then proceeds to sit down in Cathy's office. "I hear your kid is a pretty good ball player." Cathy shuffles some papers and tries to focus on her work. "Huh? I guess so. I am so swamped." "Yeah, me too," Joe says. "I had to take a break to get away from it for a while." "Since you're here," Cathy says, "I've been thinking that maybe you should evaluate using bar coding or optical character recognition technology for data entry. It might.... "

Joe interrupts. "Look at those dark clouds forming outside. I hope the game isn't rained out tonight." Cathy continues, "Some of the advantages of these technologies are...." She goes on for a few minutes. "So what do you think?" "Huh? No, they won't work" is Joe's response. "Trust me. Besides, the customer is a low-tech kind of guy, and it would increase the project costs." "But if we can show the customer that it could save him money and reduce input errors," Cathy persists, "he probably would pay the extra needed to implement the technologies." "Save him money!" Joe exclaims. "How? By laying off people? We already have too much downsizing in this country. And the government and politicians aren't doing anything about it. It doesn't matter who you vote for. They're all the same." "By the way, I still need your input for the progress report," Cathy reminds him. "I need to e-mail it to the customer tomorrow. As you know, I'll need about 8 to 10 pages. We need a thick report to show the customer how busy we've been." "What? Nobody told me," says Joe. "I sent the design team an e-mail a couple of weeks ago, saying that I needed everyone's input by last Friday. You could probably use the material you've prepared for the project status review meeting tomorrow afternoon," Cathy responds.

"I have to make a presentation at the meeting tomorrow? That's news to me," Joe tells her. "It was on the agenda distributed last week," says Cathy. "I don't have time to keep up with all the e-mails in my inbox," Joe snorts. "Well, I'll just have to wing it. I'll use some of the slides from my pitch six months ago. Nobody will know the difference. Those meetings are a waste of time anyway. Nobody cares about them. Everybody thinks they are just a waste of two hours each week." "Anyway, can you e-mail me your input for the progress report by the end of the day?" asks Cathy. "I have to leave early for the game." "What game?" "Aren't you listening to anything I say? The Little League game." "Maybe you should start working on it now," Cathy suggests. "I just have to call Jim, my assistant coach, first about the game tonight," says Joe. "Then I'll write up a couple of paragraphs. Hey, hold on a minute, I'll call Jim right now!" Joe picks up Cathy's desk phone and calls Jim and proceeds to ask Jim several questions about the game. Cathy tries to focus on her work as Joe talks very loudly to Jim. After hanging up, Joe remarks, "Can't you just take notes at the meeting tomorrow when I give my pitch? That should give you what you need for the report." "It can't wait until then. The report has to be e-mailed tomorrow, and I'll be working on it late into the night." "So, you won't be at the game?" "Just e-mail me your input." "I'm not being paid to be a typist," Joe declares. "I can write it much faster. You can get somebody to type it. You'll probably want to edit it anyway. The last report to the customer looked completely different from the input I provided. It looked like you completely rewrote it." Cathy looks back down at her desk and attempts to continue her work.

CASE QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the communication problems presented in this case?

2. What should Cathy do? What do you think Joe will do?

3. How could Cathy and Joe have handled this situation better?

4. What could have been done to prevent the communication problem between Cathy and Joe?