On this project, I lead instructional design team. Joe leads development team. Stuff his employee team and my contract team put together is magic. He can translate instructions into programs which make our eyes pop out! On days when teams get together to review latest and greatest, we "squeal with delight" and do happy dance. (What a great gig!) On regular basis, we each tell Joe & his team how lucky we are to have them. (On some IT projects, our neat ideas have come out looking like rocks. Dedicated development team makes HUGE difference--- as I'm sure you know.)

I'm discussing phase two with primary project manager (big guy responsible for everything) when Joe shuffles up to door. He asks about the program which he requested two weeks ago to make QA easier. All of sudden, out of no-where, he blurts out, "All I want is to be appreciated!" And then he looks embarrassed and starts to shuffled back to his group.

Describe what do you do? Was Joe's comment symptomatic of larger problem in his group? Was he merely exhausted from the tight deadline? Is my team's enthusiasm part of problem? Or is this one of those squeaky wheel problems?