The document discusses the case of Allen Lopez, an employee at Extremenet, who raised concerns about discrimination and unfair treatment at the company, leading him to create a satirical website criticizing management practices. This action provoked a strong response from company leadership, who considered discharging him and potentially suing to remove the website. Additionally, the document includes an unrelated case study about project prioritization at D.D. Williamson, detailing their improved process for managing critical projects to enhance success rates.

1. HU245 Employee Rights Case Study
Employee Rights Case Study
For seven years, Allen Lopez had worked for ExtremeNet, a
well-known, global, high-technology
company that provides clients with Internet services such as e-
commerce and Web development,
online marketing, strategic planning, and research. Allen was
well paid and performed well in a
responsible middle-management position, which he found
rewarding. However, as ExtremeNet
struggled to manage the effects of an economic downturn, Allen
became disenchanted with the
company's treatment of lower-level employees, including his
own assistant. Among Allen's concerns
were gender and age discrimination during layoffs, as well as
changes to personnel policies that he
believed treated lower-level employees unfairly.
Allen's frustrations grew after he raised his concerns in vain
with his superiors. What he did next put
his career in jeopardy: Working at home over several weekends,
Allen created and published on the
Internet a satiric website that inveighed against the abusive
management practices of a fictional
company that bore a striking resemblance to ExtremeNet. The
site gained some notoriety among
high- tech websites and in the business press.

2. The vice presidents of ExtremeNet were incensed to learn of the
site's existence and were concerned
that the site generated so much traffic and publicity. Although
Allen protested that he acted out of a
sense of justice and asserted that his creative work was
protected by his first amendment rights, this
did not prevent the leadership team of ExtremeNet from hastily
assembling an emergency meeting to
decide whether Allen Lopez should be discharged, and whether
ExtremeNet should file suit to have
his satirical website removed from the World Wide Web.
Assignment 1: Prioritizing Projects at D. D. Williamson (Case
Study from Chapter 2)
Due Week 3 and worth 240 points
Read the case titled: “Prioritizing Projects at D. D. Williamson”
found in Chapter 2.
Write a six to eight (6-8) page paper in which you:
Analyze the prioritizing process at D. D. Williamson.
Suggest two (2) recommendations to improve the prioritizing
process.
Create a scenario where the implemented process at D. D.
Williamson would not work.
Project five (5) years ahead and speculate whether or not D. D.
Williamson will be using the same process. Justify your answer.
Use at least four (4) quality (peer-reviewed) resources in this
assignment.PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN ACTION:
Prioritizing Projects at D. D. Williamson
One of the most difficult, yet most important, lessons we have
learned at D. D. Williamson surrounds project prioritization.
We took three years and two iterations of our prioritization
process to finally settle on an approach that dramatically

3. increased our success rate on critical projects (now called VIPs,
or “Vision Impact Projects”).
Knowing that one of the keys to project management success is
key management support, our first approach at prioritization
was a process where our entire senior management team worked
through a set of criteria and resource estimations to select a
maximum of two projects per senior management sponsor—16
projects in total. Additionally, we hired a continuous
improvement manager to serve as both our project office and a
key resource for project facilitation. This was a great move
forward (the year before we had been attempting to monitor
well over 60 continuous improvement projects of varying
importance). Our success rate improved to over 60 percent of
projects finishing close to the expected dates, financial
investment, and results.
What was the problem? The projects that were not moving
forward tended to be the most critical—the heavy-investment
“game changing” projects. A review of our results the next year
determined we left significant money in opportunity “on the
table” with projects that were behind and over budget!
This diagnosis led us to seek an additional process change.
While the criteria rating was sound, the number of projects for a
company our size was still too many to track robustly at a
senior level and have resources to push for completion. Hence,
we elevated a subset of projects to highest status—our “VIPs.”
We simplified the criteria ratings—rating projects on the level
of expected impact on corporate objectives, the cross-functional
nature of the team, and the perceived likelihood that the project
would encounter barriers which required senior level support to
overcome.
The results? Much better success rates on the big projects,
such as design and implementation of new equipment and
expansion plans into new markets. But why?
The Global Operating Team (GOT) now has laser focus on the
five VIPs, reviewing the project plans progress and next steps
with our continuous improvement manager in every weekly

4. meeting. If a project is going off plan, we see it quickly and can
move to reallocate resources, provide negotiation help, or
change priorities within and outside the organization to manage
it back on track. Certainly, the unanticipated barriers still occur,
but we can put the strength of the entire team toward removing
them as soon as they happen.
A couple of fun side benefits—it is now a development
opportunity for project managers to take on a VIP. With only
four to six projects on the docket, they come with tremendous
senior management interaction and focus. Additionally, we have
moved our prioritization process into our functional groups,
using matrices with criteria and resource estimations to
prioritize customer and R&D projects with our sales, marketing,
and science and innovation teams, as well as IT projects
throughout the company. The prioritization process has become
a foundation of our cross-functional success!
Following are excerpts from the spreadsheet D. D. Williamson
used to select and prioritize our VIP projects last year. Exhibit
2.16 shows the five criteria used to prioritize the projects.
Exhibit 2.17 shows how associate time when assigned to a
project is not available for other projects. Note all executives
agreed to spend up to 120 hours this quarter on projects and
Brian is overallocated—meaning either he will need to do extra
work, something needs to be assigned to another person, or one
less project can be completed.EXHIBIT 2.16 PROJECT
SELECTION AND PRIORITIZATION FOR D. D.
WILLIAMSON
EXHIBIT 2.16 PROJECT SELECTION AND PRIORITIZATION
FOR D. D. WILLIAMSON
EXHIBIT 2.17 ASSOCIATE TIME ASSIGNED TO PROJECTS
TED
MARGE
ELAINE
BRIAN

5. ANN
GRAHAM
EDIE
Available hours for quarter
120
120
120
120
120
120
120
Project List
Product X expansion
80
120
60
New process equipment
60
40
Environmental scrubbers

6. 60
Powder packaging equipment
60
60
Total hours committed
80
120
60
180
0
60
40
Total hours exceeding available
40
0
60
−60
120
60
80
Source: Elaine Gravatte, Chief People Officer and North
American President, D. D. Williamson.
Assignment Details

7. Conflict Resolution Paper AssignmentRead the case study for
this unit regarding ExtremeNet and Allen Lopez.As the Chief
Executive Officer for ExtremeNet, you are responsible for
resolving the conflict between Allen Lopez and ExtremeNet in a
manner that demonstrates solid ethical reasoning skills and the
ability to manage stakeholder interests.Click the "Rubric"
button to view how the Conflict Resolution Paper Assignment
will be graded.As the leader of ExtremeNet, it is your
responsibility to resolve the following questions:
Should Allen Lopez be allowed to keep his job with
ExtremeNet? Support your answer using ethical theory.Should
ExtremeNet attempt a lawsuit to force the removal of this
website? Support your answer using ethical theory.How can
ExtremeNet’s leadership best respect the rights of Allen Lopez
and ExtremeNet? Explain the impact of your ethical decision on
Allen Lopez and the company.How can ExtremeNet’s leadership
best repair the relationship between management and employees
while meeting the needs and goals of the company? Demonstrate
an understanding of the issues and how to best unify the
company to move forward.
Write a one to two page decision in which you address the
above questions and explain your reasoning.The paper should be
double-spaced, well organized, and free of errors.Put your
Assignment in a Word document. Save it in a location and with
a name that will help your instructor identify the Assignment,
the course, and you, the student.
When you are ready to submit it, click on the Unit 8 Assignment
Dropbox.
Make sure that you save a copy of your submitted Assignment.