Student Team Dilemma Custom Case Solution & Analysis

1. Evidence Brief

Financial and Academic Metrics

• Project Weight: The final team project accounts for 40 percent of the total course grade.
• Time Investment: Emily reported 45 hours of individual work on the current module. Jim reported 8 hours, primarily spent on formatting and minor edits.
• Grade Requirements: Emily requires an A to maintain her scholarship status. Jim requires a passing grade (C or higher) to fulfill graduation requirements.
• Peer Evaluation Impact: The peer evaluation score can adjust individual grades by plus or minus 15 percent from the team average.

Operational Facts

• Meeting Attendance: Team 4 held 10 scheduled meetings. Emily attended 10. Jim attended 4, citing recruiting conflicts and personal commitments for the absences.
• Communication Logs: The team WhatsApp group contains 412 messages. 62 percent were initiated by Emily. 5 percent were initiated by Jim.
• Deliverable Status: The final report is 85 percent complete. The remaining 15 percent involves the executive summary and final data validation.
• Geography: All team members are located on campus, but Jim frequently travels for job interviews on weekends.

Stakeholder Positions

Information Gaps

• Faculty Policy: The case does not specify if the professor allows for firing a team member mid-project.
• Jim's Actual Competence: It is unclear if Jim is incapable of doing the work or simply unmotivated.
• Historical Performance: Data on whether this team had similar issues in previous modules is missing.

2. Strategic Analysis

Core Strategic Question

• The central dilemma is how to manage a chronic free-rider in a high-stakes environment without compromising the final product or professional reputations.
• The team must decide between immediate confrontation, which risks project sabotage, or delayed accountability via peer reviews, which preserves the current workflow but validates poor behavior.

Structural Analysis

Tuckman Model Application: Team 4 is stuck in a permanent Storming phase. The lack of clear Norming regarding work expectations has allowed Jim to exploit the team structure. The absence of a formal contract at the project start created a vacuum that Emily filled with individual effort, reinforcing Jim's passivity.

Interest-Based Analysis: Emily values academic excellence and fairness. Jim values time efficiency and career placement. These interests are currently treated as zero-sum, but they can be aligned if the remaining tasks are tied directly to Jim's ability to pass the course.

Strategic Options

1. The Accountability Intervention: Conduct a formal team meeting to reassign the final 15 percent of the project exclusively to Jim, with a clear deadline 24 hours before the final submission.
   • Rationale: Forces Jim to contribute or face visible failure.
   • Trade-offs: High risk of a low-quality final section that Emily may still have to fix.
2. The Silent Sanction: Emily and Sarah finish the project to their standards and use the peer evaluation mechanism to reflect Jim's actual contribution accurately.
   • Rationale: Protects the grade while ensuring Jim faces the consequences later.
   • Trade-offs: Does not solve the immediate workload resentment and allows Jim to claim credit in the short term.

Preliminary Recommendation

The team should pursue the Accountability Intervention. Emily must stop subsidizing Jim's performance. By assigning him the final 15 percent with a hard internal deadline, the team creates a documented trail of his performance. If he fails, the peer evaluation serves as the secondary enforcement mechanism. This approach addresses both the immediate need for a finished product and the long-term need for fairness.

3. Implementation Planning

Critical Path

• Hour 0-2: Emily and Sarah draft a memorandum of remaining tasks and specific ownership.
• Hour 3-5: Mandatory team meeting. Present the task list. Explicitly state that Jim is responsible for the Executive Summary and Appendix validation.
• Hour 24: Internal deadline for Jim's deliverables.
• Hour 25-30: Review period. If Jim fails, Emily and Sarah execute the contingency plan (pre-drafted templates).
• Hour 48: Final submission and individual completion of peer evaluation forms.

Key Constraints

• Time Friction: The proximity to the deadline limits the ability to train Jim on complex data. Tasks assigned must be discrete and manageable.
• Emotional Volatility: Emily's frustration may lead to an aggressive tone that causes Jim to disengage entirely.
• Faculty Non-Intervention: The assumption is that the team must resolve this internally as the professor rarely intervenes in MBA-level group dynamics.

Risk-Adjusted Implementation Strategy

The strategy assumes Jim will provide sub-par work. To mitigate this, Sarah will be assigned as a shadow for the executive summary. She will not do the work but will check in at Hour 12 to provide guidance. This reduces the likelihood of a total failure at the 24-hour mark. If Jim produces nothing, the team will use a pre-structured template to finish the work in a 3-hour sprint. The peer evaluation will then be used to recommend a significant grade reduction for Jim, supported by the documented failure to meet the Hour 24 deadline.

4. Executive Review and BLUF

BLUF

Team 4 must immediately cease the internal subsidization of Jim's performance. Emily's current path of absorbing all work protects the grade but destroys team sustainability and personal well-being. The team must shift to a hard-deadline model for the remaining 15 percent of the project. If Jim fails to deliver by the internal 24-hour mark, the team must finalize the project without him and use the peer evaluation system to trigger an individual grade penalty. Fairness in a professional setting is not a byproduct of silence; it is a result of enforced accountability. The goal is to secure the A for Emily while ensuring Jim's grade reflects his 8-hour contribution rather than Emily's 45-hour effort.

Dangerous Assumption

The analysis assumes that Jim cares about the peer evaluation penalty. If Jim has already secured a job and only needs to pass, a 15 percent grade reduction may not motivate him. The team is operating on the premise that Jim is a rational actor motivated by grades, which his behavior contradicts.

Unaddressed Risks

• Reputational Backlash: In a small MBA cohort, Emily being labeled as difficult or a grade-minder could hurt her networking prospects, which Jim currently dominates.
• Retaliatory Evaluation: Jim may provide Emily with a poor peer evaluation score in retaliation for the confrontation, potentially dragging down her grade despite her high output.

Unconsidered Alternative

The team failed to consider a formal mediation session with the professor or a teaching assistant before the deadline. While MBA students are expected to self-manage, a documented meeting with a third party creates an official record that prevents Jim from disputing the peer evaluation results later. This move shifts the conflict from a personal dispute to a documented performance issue.

Verdict

APPROVED FOR LEADERSHIP REVIEW