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Tom Bray - A Project Manager

Tom Bray is the project lead for the Pegasus renovation project at AtlantiCorp. He is trying out a new management style called MBWA (Management By Wandering Around) where he walks around talking to his team members. During his first attempt, things seem to go well but on his second visit, the team is quiet and does not engage with him. This indicates that MBWA may be more difficult than expected and will require Tom to build rapport and trust with his team over time.

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171 views

Tom Bray - A Project Manager

Tom Bray is the project lead for the Pegasus renovation project at AtlantiCorp. He is trying out a new management style called MBWA (Management By Wandering Around) where he walks around talking to his team members. During his first attempt, things seem to go well but on his second visit, the team is quiet and does not engage with him. This indicates that MBWA may be more difficult than expected and will require Tom to build rapport and trust with his team over time.

Uploaded by

Tie Mie
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tom Bray

(Larson, 2018)

Tom Bray was mulling over today’s work schedule as he looked across the bay at the storm that
was rolling in. It was the second official day of the Pegasus project and now the real work was
about to begin.
Pegasus was a two-month renovation project for AtlantiCorp, a major financial institution
headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Tom’s group was responsible for installing the furniture
and equipment in the newly renovated accounts receivable department on the third floor. The
Pegasus project was a dedicated project team formed out of AtlantiCorp facilities department with
Tom as the project lead.
Tom was excited because this was his first major league project and he was looking forward to
practicing a new management style—MBWA, aka management by wandering around. He had
been exposed to MBWA in a business class in college, but it wasn’t until he attended an
AtlantiCorp leadership training seminar that he decided to change how he managed people. The
trainer was a devout MBWA champion (“You can’t manage people from a computer!”).
Furthermore, the testimonies from his peers reinforced the difference that MBWA can make when
it comes to working on projects.
Tom had joined the facilities group at AtlantiCorp five years earlier after working for EDS for six
years. He quickly demonstrated technical competences and good work habits. He was
encouraged to take all the internal project management workshops offered by AtlantiCorp. On his
last two projects he served as assistant project manager responsible for procurement and contract
management.
He had read books about the soft side of project management and MBWA made sense—after all,
people not tools get projects done. His boss had told him he needed to refine his people skills and
work on developing rapport with team members. MBWA seemed like a perfect solution.
Tom reviewed the list of team member names; some of the foreign names were real tongue
twisters. For example, one of his better workers was from Thailand and her name was Pinyarat
Sirisomboonsuk. He practiced saying “Pin-ya-răt See-rē-som-boon-sook.”
He got up, tucked in his shirt, and walked out of his office and down to the floor where his team
was busy unloading equipment.
Tom said “Hi” to the first few workers he met until he encountered Jack and three other workers.
Jack was busy pulling hardware out of a box while his teammates were standing around talking.
Tom blurted, “Come on guys, we’ve got work to do.” They quickly separated and began unloading
boxes.
The rest of the visit seemed to go well. He helped Shari unload a heavy box and managed to get
an appreciative grin from Pinyarat when he almost correctly pronounced her name. Satisfied, Tom
went back up to his office thinking that MBWA wouldn’t be that tough to do.
After responding to e-mail and calling some vendors, Tom ventured back out to see how things
were going downstairs. When he got there, the floor was weirdly quiet. People were busy doing
their work and his attempts at generating conversation elicited stiff responses. He left thinking that
maybe MBWA is going to be tougher than he thought.

1. What do you think is going on at the end of this case?


2. What should Tom do next and why?
3. What can be learned from this case?

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