You receive a call from your manager to take on a short term assignment in Pretoria, South Africa on a program that is having difficulties. You have been asked to work with the program manager, systems engineer, key staff members, and the customer to determine and document a path forward. Here are some of the facts about the program and the circumstances:
The contract was awarded by the South African telecommunications company about six months earlier. The period of performance is approximately one year.
The scope of the project is to develop and install a state-of-the-art land line telecommunications system. Your company is responsible for developing and building the system; the customer is responsible for providing distribution to the user and the interface specifications to your system.
This is a fixed price, developmental contract.
Both parties (buyer and seller) have the right to terminate the contract (with legal ramifications) if the terms of the contract are not met by the other party.
The contract requirements are 100 pages long, conflicting, and in many cases unclear.
Your company’s position is that the customer is not fulfilling their obligations on the contract to make decisions that affect the design of the new system.
A colleague, who has been working in-country on the project warns you that an employee was stabbed in front of the office the week before, and a fellow colleague was mugged a few weeks before that on her way home.
The office hours are strictly 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for security reasons. You will be escorted at all times when you are outside the office or outside the hotel where you will be staying. You know that, given the assignment, you will have to work many long hours, and will need to reach out to many of the team members. You have two weeks to come up with the plan.
The subsidiary of your company responsible for the program has a 40 person team on-site in Pretoria. Recruiting key people to work on this program was very difficult. Several key people have already resigned and have not been replaced.
You agree to take on the assignment, select two trusted experts from your team to join you, and head off to South Africa.
What is your plan for dealing with the disagreement between the two parties? [Consider the tools we discussed in class to resolve/clarify the issues.]
What is your plan for dealing with the security issues?