Maximizing Communications Human Networking

Ms. Sapper, this year's annual partner meeting coordinator for a global accounting firm, faced an interesting challenge. With 400 high-powered partners gathering from all around the world, she wanted to arrange meal seating in a way that maximized diversity at each table. She hoped that this seating would encourage partners to open up new lines of communication and discourage old cliques from re-forming. The banquet facility included 50 tables, each seating eight guests. Sapper had all the necessary partner data, but she found herself stumped about how to maximize diversity at each table. Let's walk her through the process.
Download and save "partners.xls" from the MIS 10e OLC. Open the file and note that in addition to partners' names, it also contains industry, region, and gender information. The Table No. column has been left blank.

a. In Excel's menu, select "Data" and then "Sort" and then press the "F1" key for help. Read through each of the topics. How would an ascending sort arrange the list "Smith; Jones; Zimmerman"?

b. What feature allows users to sort month lists so January appears before April?

c. Sort the partner data first on Gender, then by Industry, and then by Region, and save the file.

d. Examine the sorted results from the previous step. Notice that assigning the first eight partners to the same table would minimize diversity. This result should also provide a clue about how to maximize diversity. Using this insight, assign a table number in the range from 1 to 50 to each partner in your sorted list so to maximize diversity. Save the file as "partners_sorted.xls" and explain your logic.