Rodney Spins His Project. (the Human Side)
2002; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1930-0166
Autores Tópico(s)Leadership and Management in Organizations
ResumoThe following hypothetical human resources problem has, like so many o fits ilk, no correct answer. In order to help your colleagues deal with such a situation, please tell us how you would handle it. We'll print as many as space permits. The Editor. Evers, XYZ Corporation's R&D VP, had grown frustrated over his poor communications with XYZ's marketing operation. He was tired of reviewing R&D projects with Marketing only to hear, Whatever made you think we'd want to market something like this? Or We could have sold this a year ago but your R&D effort is so slow that we've missed the marketing opportunity! Tom believed he could fix this situation, and with the concurrence of the VP of Marketing created a new position reporting to Tom. The position carried the title Director of Marketing--R&D Communications and was to be filled by an individual from Marketing. Initial selection for the position was Wallace, a young member of the Marketing Department, noted for the enthusiasm he had displayed in his past assignments at XYZ but with little knowledge of how a product or feature got developed. Tom told him he had the opportunity to roam freely throughout the R&D labs and get acquainted with all of the work in progress. From time to time, he was to select projects he thought would interest Marketing and arrange for their review. Tom pointed out that the earlier in the project's life they could do this reviewing, the better the chance of killing off projects of little interest to Marketing while accelerating the others. Seeking a Project Ron spent a few weeks getting acquainted with the R&D labs and the projects underway. He did encounter mild resentment from some R&D members who disliked the intrusion into their activities. One senior researcher observed to anyone who would listen, want Marketing to keep their nose out of my work. I'll let 'em know when I want an opinion from them! Following this get-acquainted period, Ron informed Tom that he had found an exciting project to lead off the reviews with marketing. It's the new control system concept that Rodney Boyd is working on. It sure looks like a winner to me and will certainly give us a competitive advantage over most of our competitors! (Regular readers will remember Rodney from Tom's New Recognition System Misfires, RTM, March-April, 1999, pp. 58-9.) Tom was surprised because he knew Rodney's project was in its early stages, was far from completion and had major hurdles to clear. He would have preferred one of several other projects, but in the interests of the communication experiment, told Ron to go ahead and schedule the project review. Tom was also apprehensive about the quality of the presentation Rodney would make, as he had found in the past that Rodney was prone to be careless about such things. …
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