You’re leading a project to migrate customer data (biographical, billing, and orders) from the legacy system to an off-the-shelf product sold by MicroTech. The project was going well, but a key programmer recently informed you that her manager needs her to work on a budget initiative, and her availability for project work will be reduced by 40% effective immediately.

You work in a functional organizational structure, which means that your power to assign resources is limited. How do you plan to handle this situation? How will you approach the functional manager about making sure the programmer is available the hours you were promised?

When is cross-training important in an organization to fill positions needed in projects?