GROUP-BASED ASSIGNMENT GBA01: Role-play

This assignment is worth 30% of the final mark for NCO113 Teamwork in the Modern Workplace. This is a group-based assignment.

Please make your assignment submissions in Canvas. The submission deadline is as follows:

T## Tutorial Groups
T01: 14 February 2025, 1200 hours
T02: 16 February 2025, 1200 hours
T03: 17 February 2025, 1200 hours
T04: 1 April 2025, 1200 hours
T05: 1 April 2025, 1200 hours

Notes to Students:

1. You have been assigned to a GBA group of three or four members from your tutorial group. A leader has been assigned from your GBA group. The leader’s only additional responsibility is to submit this assignment on behalf of the GBA group.

2. This assignment consists of 2 submissions: (i) a video and (ii) a transcript of the spoken words in the video. Each GBA group is required to make these 2 submissions via your tutorial group site in Canvas:

i. Submit the video to “GBA01”

ii. Submit the transcript to “-GBA01 Transcript”

3. Create and submit your video as an MP4 video file.

4. Your video must not exceed 5 minutes (minimum of 4 minutes) of recording.
Recording beyond 5 minutes will not be graded.

5. Name your video file strictly to this format:

FullName_PI#_CourseCode_Semester_Tutorial-Group#_GBA-Group#_GBA
For example, TanMeiMeiSally_A1234567_NCO113_Jan25_T01_Group3B_GBA

6. Name your transcript file strictly to this format:
FullName_PI#_CourseCode_Semester_Tutorial-Group#_GBA Group#_Transcript For example, TanMeiMeiSally_A1234567_NCO113_Jan25_T01_Group3B_Transcript

7. Verify and review your submissions.

8. Every group member must participate in making the video and appear in the video. Group members should report any free-riding group member to the tutor before the assignment deadline. Free-riders will not be tolerated and will be expelled from the group, resulting in a non-submission of the GBA and a zero mark for the assignment for the free-riders.

Group bullying will also not be tolerated.

9. The group is strongly encouraged to submit the assignment before the specified deadline.

Multiple submissions are allowed before the specified deadline. Only the latest
submission will be graded. There is strictly no extension of assignment deadline. Mark

deduction scheme for late submission applies. Please refer to the Student Handbook for more details.

Situational Case

Toby Tan, GM of Excel Design Studio’s Singapore office, woke up unusually early today. He had an online client meeting scheduled at 9 am. Toby had dreaded this meeting since yesterday after receiving a call from Bob Grey, Excel’s global project director based in London, about complaints from Quantum, one of Excel’s largest clients.

Quantum was a leading cloud storage service provider rapidly expanding their global data centre capacities. It had engaged Excel to be its global project management (PM) service provider for its data centre design and construction projects. In addition to the two projects in Singapore and Indonesia under the Singapore office, Excel was concurrently working on six other projects for Quantum in Eastern Europe, Central Europe, the USA, and South Africa.

Yesterday, Bob had an hour-long call with Quantum’s global project director, Susan Blacksmith. Susan was an ex-colleague of Bob and was instrumental in helping Excel clinchthe global PM service contract1 with Quantum last year. She trusted Bob and Excel’s multidisciplinary engineering design capability, PM expertise, and global presence. Susan told Bob that she had been under increasing internal pressure as Quantum’s local offices had complained about Excel’s performance in Asia and other parts of the world. Four of the ongoing projects were behind schedule. The Indonesia project with a five-month delay seemed especially problematic due to recurrent mechanical and electrical (M&E) design submission delays. Indonesia and Singapore were two strategic markets designated by Quantum to spearhead their APAC (Asia Pacific) business growth.

Susan had known about the problems with the Indonesian project for some time. Excel’s local project delivery capability in Indonesia was weak as they had no Indonesian office or staffing presence. Excel had been relying on its Singapore-based team to manage the Indonesia-based design consultants and contractors2 remotely, and the quality of the PM reporting was not up to standard. Quantum Indonesia had complained about the performance of the Singapore-based Excel team multiple times, but little had changed.

Susan had repeatedly urged Toby and Bob to hire an Indonesia-based senior design manager3 to support the Indonesia-based design consultants. But Toby had pushed back on Susan’s demands, suggesting that finding a qualified design manager in Indonesia was difficult.

1 Please note that this particular global PM service contract between Excel and Quantum does not include design responsibilities (e.g. seeking regulatory approvals for designs, participating in the design process, etc.).

2 These Indonesia-based design consultants and contractors are involved in the design/construction of Quantum’s data centres. They are vendors contracted by Quantum. 3 To be clear, this senior design manager would be on Excel’s payroll (i.e. an Excel employee).

Further, the proposed additional design oversight was outside the initially agreed project scope of the PM service, and Excel was not paid to participate in any part of the data centre design process.

Toby was concerned about the project’s profitability. Supporting the Indonesian project out of Singapore was costly. Hiring an Indonesia-based senior design manager would push the project further into the red. Toby felt that Susan was unreasonable. In Toby’s view, the Indonesian project had run into design submission delays partly because the Indonesia-based design consultants had insisted on many M&E design requirements that were uncommon in Indonesia.

Earlier this week, Susan was surprised to learn about the imminent departure of the Project Manager from Excel Singapore overseeing the Indonesian project through a competitor of Excel. Susan was displeased about the lack of timely communication with her team about his departure. Although Susan and her team did not think too highly about this Project Manager’s capability, he had been instrumental in driving the project since its inception. His departure would further weaken Excel’s PM capability and cause further delays to the project. Susan’s boss had pressured her to catch up on the Indonesian project quickly, or she should look for an alternative project management service provider for APAC.

Meanwhile, Bob was furious with Toby because he only heard about the imminent departure of the Excel Project Manager overseeing the Indonesian project from Susan, which made him look bad. He wished Toby had informed him earlier, so he could be more prepared for his discussion with Susan yesterday. As the global project director, Bob was responsible for the overall performance of the various projects for Quantum, and Bob had to meet up with Susan monthly to report on their progress. He was aware of the multiple project delays and had been chasing the local country managers to step up their project resources to catch up on those projects. But since he had no P&L (Profit and Loss) responsibilities nor the power to mobilise local resources, Bob needed the cooperation of the local management teams to drive the projects.

Internally, Bob had also been under pressure from the COO to improve their performance as Excel was bidding for additional design contracts from Quantum. The last thing he wanted to happen was to lose the global PM service contract on the existing projects. In his email to Toby yesterday, Bob was quite blunt and direct in requesting Toby to mobilise Excel Singapore’s senior project manager and design team quickly to jump into the Indonesia project. And Toby was expected to propose a workable plan for Susan’s buy-in in today’s meeting.

4 Typical of a matrix reporting organization, the global project director (Bob) has no direct authority over the hiring decisions of local Excel offices. On the other hand, the global project director can put pressure on the local Excel offices by talking to the C-suite (e.g. CEO).

Toby was unhappy with Bob as he thought that Bob just wanted to look good in front of Quantum and leave him with the heavy lifting. Since learning about the resignation of the Project Manager, Toby has had several conversations with the resigned Project Manager hoping to retain him, but without success. The Project Manager shared with Toby that the GM of Quantum’s Indonesia office was tough to work with, micro-managing their work and second-guessing his recommendations. It was the main reason why the Project Manager had decided to quit.

Immediately after his call with Bob yesterday, Toby called for an urgent internal meeting with his heads of department for PM and M&E services. They had known about the resignation of the Project Manager overseeing the Indonesia project two weeks ago but were hoping to find a replacement quickly before disclosing it to Bob and Susan. But it was challenging to find a suitable replacement with such short notice. Now that Susan had learned about the news from their competitor, they must formulate a plan quickly to manage the situation.

Toby knew that the Indonesian project would undoubtedly be loss-making. Still, he had to bear the loss because Quantum was one of Excel’s major clients. He could only hope that his investment in Quantum would pay off when Quantum’s APAC business eventually took off, leading potentially to follow-on deals for Excel.

He discussed options for internal transfer from other projects. But the Singapore office resources were extremely tight as they had just kickstarted two government projects in Singapore. Few experienced managers would be willing to relocate to Indonesia to oversee the project there as most of them were married with kids studying in Singapore. Partnering with or outsourcing to an Indonesia-based project management service provider could be another option, but this would mean making a further loss from the project. Quantum would also reject this option since building up Excel’s in-house capabilities for servicing the Indonesian project was a commitment Excel had made to Quantum when bidding for the global PM service contract.

How would Toby, Bob and Susan manage the situation and propose a way forward?

Question 1

As a group, prepare a video of a role-play of the above meeting. In the role-play, you should demonstrate empathy, apply appropriate communication skills, and use collaboration and problem-solving skills to manage team relationships and conflict to promote effective teamwork.

Each group member must assume one character (Toby, Bob or Susan) in the role-play of the above meeting. The group may introduce an additional character appropriate for the meeting. The meeting can be a physical in-person meeting or a virtual online meeting. When preparing the plot of the role-play, the group can make appropriate assumptions about the situational case and make appropriate extensions to the situational case. The situational case provides the context going into the above meeting. The meeting should not be a recap of the situational case.

Issues the group should consider and discuss when preparing for the role-play may include, but are not limited to, the following: Who should attend the meeting? What do you hope to achieve from the meeting? What are the pain points and constraints of each participant? Given each participant’s roles and emotional states, how will they demonstrate and apply empathic communication to clarify each other’s concerns and problem-solve collaboratively? What alternatives and trade-offs might each participant offer or demand in return? How can they influence each other to reach consensus on a mutually agreeable plan to move forward in the short, medium and long term?