Sphere Contractors is a medium-sized construction firm headquartered in Meerut, India. It undertakes mass-housing residential projects sponsored by the government. Their projects spread across the states of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. The company is a startup by two civil engineering friends Ramesh and Manoj, established in 2014 when the Indian infrastructure market was at its peak. The strategic team at Sphere Contractors consists of Shekhar, Kalai, Murugan, Hemant and Shagun. Shagun is the only female in the team. The role of this team of five is to initiate a project and kickstart the work on a newly awarded project. Last week the company was awarded a tender for the construction of 40 residential towers each having three floors in the newly developed city of Noida. It is the largest contract they had won to date. As soon as the news reached Manoj, he congratulated Ramesh and then scheduled a meeting with the strategic team for the next day at 9:00 am. The strategic team is on the move continuously monitoring different projects. They are at times several kilometres apart from the main office, Meerut from which Ramesh and Manoj operate. Thus, the physical presence was kept optional during the meet and participants can connect through video conferencing. The next day the team met for the discussion. Kalai and Shekhar joined in person while Murugan, Hemant and Shagun joined through video conferencing from the different project sites. As per the undefined norm, all the team members came prepared for the meeting with the contract documents, drawings of the new project. The first task ahead of the team is to decide the logistics of the site, workmen accommodation, Plant and Machinery details, project office layout and the human resource which has to deploy at the site. Ramesh kicks off the meeting with a short description of the project, the desired deliverables, contract cost, safety and quality requirements. He also clearly states the well-defined criteria over which the final plan will be selected. The criteria here was that the final plan must incorporate safety egress, efficient vehicle movement, separation of office and project, efficient selection of plant and machinery and optimum use of a skilled staff of the company. He also made clear the additional emphasis on safety and quality as demanded by the client. After that, he tells the team members to present their proposals one by one. This is the technique of Inquiry used in the decision-making process. Shekhar starts the presentation followed by Kalai and subsequently ending with Shagun. After these presentations, there were multiple alternatives present for the team to deliberate upon and this acted as the starting ground for further discussions. There was a clash between the workmen accommodation location between Murugan and Shekhar. Murugan wanted the accommodation close to the entry of the site but Shekhar pointed out that accommodation close to the gate will hinder the movement of vehicles inside the project. There was a lot of dissent and debate between the two of them. Finally, Kalai entered into the discussion and questioned the assumption (assumption-testing) made by Shekhar. He suggested that the location of the workmen colony close to the main gate of the site is beneficial as it will save the additional investment towards a separate security guard. He argued that the main gate guard can himself manage the colony. Kalai also suggested that the movement of the vehicles will be through a secondary gate due to the restrictions by the municipality. Following this discussion, Manoj suggested that this debate can be resolved by observing the locations of the workmen colony in past projects. On the analysis of drawings, plans of old projects using AutoCAD it was found that there was no correlation between the location of gate and location of workmen colony. This criteria had a better perception of fairness and was selected. After that, the team started working on the logistics i.e, routing, pathways, emergency exits etc. Here the team found themselves in a difficult situation as the main pathway for labourers was just beside the concrete pipeline. Since concrete pipelines possess an explosion threat, there was a need for the innovative solution here since neither the layout of the labour pathway nor the concrete pipeline can be altered. Even after a long brainstorming, the team was not able to reach a solution. After that Kalai suggested the team think innovatively while remaining within the practical constraints i.e, no change in layout. Finally, Hemant came with the solution to install a steel-sheet wall between the labour pathway and the pipeline which will act as a barrier. This was an example where innovation within constraints proved to be a better strategy. Even after brainstorming and deliberating much, the team was not able to decide upon the staff selection for the project. Observing this Ramesh congratulated the team for finalising most of the plan and suggested that each member provides the list of proposed staff individually. This was an instance where space was given to work individually to each member in order to reach an solution. In the next meeting after 4 days, the final list of staff was also selected.

Supplement Materials for Case Study:

Summary of Characters and their roles:

1. Ramesh - Chief Executive officer
2. Manoj - Chief Financial officer
3. Shekhar - Construction Planning Cell Head
4. Kalai - Plant and Machinery Head
5. Murugan - Environment, Health and Safety Head
6. Hemant - Quality Assurance and Quality Control Head
7. Shagun - Head HR Manager

Learning Objectives:

1. Understanding practices for making better decisions
2. Creativity and Innovation best practices
3. Understanding how groups use technology

Key terms with definitions:

1. Norms - As a group develops, it develops various unique standards, customs, and expectations which are called norms.
2. Inquiry (Decision Making) - Inquiry is all about improving the quality of information that we base our decisions on, and incorporating more perspectives in our decision making so that we can better understand the issues at hand and make better decisions.
3. Well-Defined criteria (Decision Making) : This is the tool based on which different ideas are assessed and the decision regarding the acceptance of a proposal is made.
4. Multiple - Alternatives (Decision Making) : A good decision can rarely be made just by supporting or rejecting a single idea. Instead, it is better to look for more alternatives and then deciding upon them.
5. Dissent and Debate (Decision Making) : It is necessary that before the implementation of any alternative, there must be sufficient back and forth discussion between the team so that shortcomings if any can be prevented in the final decision.
6. Assumption Testing (Decision Making) : During the process of finalising a decision, we make certain assumptions in the beginning. But as new information becomes available, the initial assumptions may not remain valid. This is the technique of Assumption Testing.
7. Perception of Fairness (Decision Making) : It tells that an alternative which has been selected based on open and unbiased parameter is more likely be accepted by all group members.
8. Innovation within constraints (Creativity and Innovation) : Authors Chip and Dan while writing for a magazine, Fast company suggested that structure enables creativity and innvoation
9. Individual Work (Creativity and Innovation) : It has been proved from research that when team members are provided space to explore the problem individually and working on their solutions while periodically getting insigths from group, they create more innovative and better solutions