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Director of Technology (DT)

    Paul, age 49, is expected to make unbiased technical decisions and to stay out of the "budget swirl." In order to do this, he must stay up to date technically as well as maintain a good understanding of all projects in the organization. He expects the projects to provide him with technical data, and he expects his boss, the General Manager, to bless his decisions and mandate them to the projects or back them up when necessary. Paul conducts regular technical project reviews which serve as his primary source of project data. Despite his role as impartial technology arbiter, Paul believes that the strategic direction of the organization is ultimately defined by its budget. Paul is happy when he believes he has made sound decisions - when past decisions do not backfire or need to be reversed in the future. He is unhappy when he has to rework his decisions, when he has to grapple with the consequences of past decisions, or when he has no clue as to the right decision. He therefore tries to get concensus from others, and if this is not forthcoming he stalls on making decisions, effectively deadlocking the decision process.



Larry Latour
Tue Sep 19 00:30:00 EDT 1995