solution

Brendan’s internship at Kramer & kaplin Market Research in Calgary stated out well. He enjoyed brainstorming ideas with his manager and designing a survey for an important client. However, the past few weeks have been pure misery. Brendan’s supervisor assigned him to join three other interns on a team to create a comprehensive online handbook for interns. Brendan will work on this project with one other intern from the Calgary office (Roberto) and two interns from New Delhi, India (Maansi and Anant).

Planning the first meeting was difficult. Brendan lost two days of work trying to se t a meeting time because there is a 12.5 hour time difference between Calgary and New Delhi: at 9 a.m. Central Standard Time in Calgary it is 9:30 p.m. in New Delhi. Brendan suggested a 7 a.m. teleconference, but his Calgary teammate, Roberto, said he could not arrive in the office early for a meeting. brendan suggested an 8:30 a.m. teleconference, which would be 9:00 p.m. in New Delhi. Both his New Delhi teammates, Maansi and Anant, were vague about whether they could stay late. Brendan begged Roberto to arrange to get to work early just one day so that the team could hold a kickoff meeting. Roberto admitted that he could easily get to the office early, but preferred to sleep later. After much difficulty, the first meeting is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. Central Standard Time on Wednesday.

QUESTION 1:

Are there any online scheduling tools that could have made this initial task easier? Identify at least 3 such tools and describe how they would have facilitated this task.

QUESTION 2:

If the criteria for the selection of a tool for this meeting include low-cost or free, easy access, synchronous connectivity, and the ability to share screens, what would be the 3 best tools to use for this first virtual meeting? Which of the 3 would you recommend and why?

QUESTION 3:

Can the tool you recommend help with Roberto’s participation in future meetings? How?

After the meeting, it is clear that all four interns seem to share at least one goal in common: to create an excellent handbook for interns. However, each intern has a different opinion about what is required to achieve that goal. While Brendana nd Roberto are focused on providing useful content for a rpint or ebook version, Maansi and Anant are focused on the technical aspects of delivering an engaging, interactive webstie to deliver the content. They believe that programming is key. Existing content can simply be imported into the new site.

QUESTION 4:

Which asynchronous deocument management tool would you recommend to house the content for this project?

QUESTION 5:

How would your rate the level of secuirty needed for the digital assets related to this project: very high, high, medium, or low? Explain.

Does the tool you recommend provide the appropriate level of security?

As the summer and the project progress, the team begins to communicate informally through an instant messaging platform. Although their workdays are inverse because of time zone differences, the instant messaging platform allows them to keep in touch through their mobile devices. At the end of the project, all four team members credit this synchronous connectivity with their relationship building and the creation of a sense of trust and cohesion.

QUESTION 6:

Research and consider the following possible alternatives for the instant messaging platform used by this team:

• Whats App
• Viber
• Voxer
• Slack
• Facebook Messenger
• Skype

Which platform do you think the used? Why?