Issues:

Integrity
Professional communication skills
Work Habits

Facts:
Project 1: Commissary Conversion

The week of February 23, 1998 Keanan gave James the commissary project to manage. The project had to be completed by April 15, 1998. After one month, James had only worked on the EDI interface; James had not addressed : (I) the Telxon equipment issue, (ii) the telephone lines and connectivity issues, or (iii) none of the field communication issues; further, James had not developed the project plans or communicated with representatives of Edward Don & Company (the company that was contracting with MRG to operate our commissary functions) regarding the project. When Keanan asked about the communication with Edward Don representatives, James said "they have not called me back". Keanan had to tell James to quit waiting and make the communications happen. After the March 20th meeting with a Edward Don representative, Janet Smith called Keanan and expressed concern that James was not taking the established completion date seriously and she was not getting any results. Since time sensitive issues were not getting resolved, Keanan had to get involved in order to complete the project on time.

Project 2: Pondersosa Payroll Polling

April 29, 1998 through May 8, 1998 seven test runs were to be completed; each test run should take about two hours. Once completed a software release could be scheduled. May 5th James was notified by Beth Briggs that the files were ready for testing. James did not take action until May 7th. On May 7th (two days lost) James asked Mary to rename one file; she did so within 30 minutes and communicated this information back to James. Friday, May 8th James e-mailed Mary and asked for the file same again, because he had "clobbered" the previously provided file (see attached e-mails). James did not communicate with Mary again until I told him to on May 12th (two more days lost). James knew that this critical software release was waiting for his testing to be completed. This testing dependency was communicated in several team meetings by the project leader, Carol Pfingston. James said he communicated with Mary many times in order to get the files he needed. Mary says the only two messages she received was May 7th and 8th (as listed above). This misrepresentation raised questions regarding James' integrity.

In the April 29, 1998 project meeting James committed to reprinting the payroll adjustment report and having Julie Cadenhead verify his last set of changes by May 9th (see 4/29 meeting notes). On May 5th, in a meeting with James and John Cole, I explained to James that Payroll's report verification was extremely high priority in order to keep the payroll polling project on schedule. On Wednesday, May 13th James said payroll had not verified the changes because they were in "close" (financial month-end process). Since payroll does not have a "close" process, I asked if he meant corporate office "move" issues. He nodded. I called Julie Cadenhead and Judy Kramer, each of them said James had never contacted them about verifying the adjustments report. Again, James' failure to communicate fully and honestly and his misleading statements have cause James' integirty to continue to be called into question. Jame's failure to meet the May 9th completion date for this verification causeed this part of the payroll polling project to be behind schedule.

Other Facts

Bill and Keanan have witnessed James using company time and resources to work on personal matters such as; web pages and CD pick list for his home business.

Impact:

James' claim that payroll was too busy to review the reports creates a credibility and trust issue with team members and users.
Even though the commissary project was James responsibility to manger through completion, Keanan had to spend extensive hours managing the commissary project himself, at the SE-3 level, James should not need any direct supervison in managing and completing projects on time. His inabaility to complete the assigned projects in a timely manner required Keanan to reschedule his own priorities and devote his time to managing and completing James's project.
The software release could not be sent the week of May 11th because the testing was not completed by James in a timely manner. The project completion date had to be adjusted, which also impacts other project time-lines scheduled to start after this project.
Not meeting project time-lines reflects negatively on every team member and the Systems Department.
Missed dead-lines severely affect team morale in a negative way. Team members work hard and then lack of communication impacts the project delivery date.
Important deadlines were missed, which in part were caused by James working on personal matters.

Expectations:
James must communicate in a professional and supprotive manner when dealing with co-workers, supervisors, team leaders, management or any other person with whom James deals with on company business. He must always communicate in an honest manner and fully disclose all relevant information. His work effots and energy must at all time be focused on company objectives and not personal matters.

Consequences
James current job performance has become unacceptable because of integrity issues, lack of communication skills, and work habit issues. If integrity, communication, and work habit issues are not resolved we will evaluate your continued employment at MRG.

This document will be placed in your permanent personnel file.

(R. James Martin [employee], Keanan Wright [manager], and Bill Thurlow [witness], 6/1/98)