Group 1

Dipesh - The Project Manager

Case Analysis

Case Summary

The case discusses about the challenges faced by organizations and individuals when young
technologist are promoted to managerial roles. The major characters in the case are:

Dipesh

 Senior Manager in a big multinational

 Responsible for very prestigious program for a big French telecom operator

 3 project managers working in his application team

Ram, Rohit, Ravi

 Young technologists promoted to Project Manager under Dipesh

 Each manages a team of 15 tech members

Major problems faced

Dipesh

Newly promoted Project Managers are not happy with the new role and are not able to fulfill
the responsibilities of the new position

Ram, Rohit, Ravi

 Human Issues
 Culture of the team

 Not able to rate the performance of the subordinates

 Diminishing their own technical expertise because of the new role

 Not able to understand the importance of organizational meeting

 No front end experience which is making it difficult to handle customers

 All 3 of them were highly competent technical professionals and they expect the same
from their team which is creating high disparities in delegating and fulfilling roles and
responsibilities, and resulting in low productivity

Important questions to be asked with respect to Talent Management

Examine the role of Ravi, Ram and Rohit and Dipesh as a talent in their organization. Do you
consider them as talent? If yes, why? If not, why not?

Before answering this question it will be beneficial to understand who is classified as a Talent
and what attributes can be used to consider the above characters as Talent.

Who is a Talent?

Talent in business context means any employee who is high performing and has high
potential to drive organizational growth. Attributes of a Talent are:

 Knowledge

 Experience

 Skills

 Abilities
 Capabilities

 High Performance

 High Potential

Based on above definition and attributes lets classify each of the character as Talent or Not
Talent.

Dipesh:

He is a senior manager and has high performance and potential. Although the decision to
promote his most competent technical professional to managerial roles raises a question on
the credibility of considering him as a Talent. But he possess all the above attributes and can
be classified as a Talent.

Ram, Rohit, Ravi

As Technical Professional, there is no doubt about the competencies of these 3 people as

they have superior expertise in their technical field. They possess all the above attributes and
definitely can be classified as Talents.

But in their new role as Project Managers raises many questions about their fit in the
organization at managerial level. They don’t have enough knowledge about the work of a
manager, does not possess people skills which is the most important skill to have as a
manager, they don’t have skills, their ability and capability to work as Project Managers is
definitely on the lower side of the scale. They are not able to perform in their new role and
because of the performance of the teams working under them is also hampered. Considering
all these factors, it would be relevant to NOT classify them as Talents as per their new role
in the organization.

Recommendations for Dipesh

 Consider transferring Ram, Rohit and Ravi back to their original role as they are more
 useful to the organization as technical professionals and their new role is hampering
growth of every stakeholder involved

 Work with HR department to hire more competent and experienced professionals for
managerial roles