Case 11.3Franklin Equipment, Ltd.*Franklin Equipment, Ltd. (FEL), with headquarters and main fabrication facilities in Saint John, New Brunswick, was founded 75 years ago to fabricate custom-designed large machines for construction businesses in the Maritime Provinces. Over the years its product lines became strategically focused on creating rock-crushing equipment for dam and highway construction and for a few other markets that require the processing of aggregate. FEL now designs, fabricates, and assembles stationary and portable rock-crushing plants and services its own products and those of its competitors. In the 1970s, FEL began to expand its market from the Maritime Provinces to the rest of Canada. FEL currently has several offices and fabrication facilities throughout the country. More recently, FEL has made a concerted effort to market its products internationally. Last month, FEL signed a contract to design and fabricate a rock-crushing plant for a Middle East construction project, called Project Abu Dhabi. Charles Gatenby secured this contract and has been assigned as project manager. This project is viewed as a coup because FEL has wanted to open up markets in this area for a long time and has had difficulty getting prospective customers to realize that FEL is a Canadian firm and not from the United States. Somehow these customers view all North American ven-dors as the same and are reluctant to employ any of them because of international political considerations. A project of this scope typically starts with the selection of a team of managers responsible for various aspects of the design, fabrication, delivery, and installation of the product. Manager selection is important because the product design and fabrica-tion vary with the unique needs of each customer. For example, the terrain, rock char-acteristics, weather conditions, and logistical concerns create special problems for all phases of plant design and operations. In addition, environmental concerns and labor conditions vary from customer to customer and from region to region. In addition to the project manager, all projects include a design engineer; an oper-ations manager, who oversees fabrication and on-site assembly; and a cost accoun-tant, who oversees all project financial and cost reporting matters. Each of these people must work closely together if a well-running plant is to be delivered on time and within cost constraints. Because international contracts often require FEL to employ host nationals for plant assembly and to train them for operations, a human resource manager is also assigned to the project team. In such cases, the human resource manager needs to understand the particulars of the plant specifications and then use this knowledge to design selection procedures and assess particular training needs. The human resource manager also needs to learn the relevant labor laws of the customer’s country. FEL assigns managers to project teams based on their expertise and their availabil-ity to work on a particular project given their other commitments. This typically means that managers without heavy current project commitments will be assigned to new projects. For instance, a manager finishing one project will likely be assigned a man-agement position on a new project team. The project manager typically has little to say about who is assigned to his or her team.* Courtesy of John A. Drexler Jr., Oregon State University.Lar66093_ch11_374-417.indd 41411/9/16 7:22 PM424Larson Chapter 11 Managing Project Teams 415 Because he secured Project Abu Dhabi and has established positive working rela-tionships with the Abu Dhabi customer, Gatenby was assigned to be project manager. Gatenby has successfully managed similar projects. The other managers assigned to Project Abu Dhabi are Bill Rankins, a brilliant design engineer, Rob Perry, operations manager with responsibility for fabrication and installation, Elaine Bruder, finance and cost accounting manager, and Sam Stonebreaker, human resource manager. Each of these managers has worked together on numerous past projects. A few years ago, FEL began contracting for team facilitator services from several consulting firms to help new project teams operate effectively. Last month, FEL recruited Carl Jobe from one of these consulting firms to be a full-time internal con-sultant. A number of managers, including Gatenby, were so impressed with Jobe’s skills that they convinced FEL top management of the need to hire a permanent inter-nal facilitator; Jobe was the obvious choice. Because Gatenby was instrumental in hiring Jobe at FEL, he was excited at the prospect of using Jobe to facilitate team building among Project Abu Dhabi team members. Gatenby was very proud of having secured this project and had expected to be appointed project manager. He knew that this project’s success would be instrumen-tal in advancing his own career. Gatenby told Jobe, “This project is really important to FEL and to me personally. I really need for you to help us develop into a team that works well together to achieve the project’s goals within budget. I’ve observed your success in developing teams on other projects, and I expect you’ll do the same for Project Abu Dhabi. I’ll take care of you if you help me make this work.” Jobe outlined for Gatenby how he would proceed. Jobe would begin by interview-ing team members individually to learn their perceptions of each other and of the promises and pitfalls of being involved in this project. Meetings of the entire team would follow these interviews using the information he collected to help establish a team identity and a shared vision. Jobe interviewed Bruder first. She expressed skepticism about whether the project could succeed. During the interview, Bruder appeared to be distant, and Jobe could not figure out why he had not established good rapport with her. Bruder intimated that she expected a lot of cost overruns and a lot of missed production deadlines. But not know-ing Jobe well, Bruder