Sample of Role Play Script for Students’ Practice

The New Bicycle

Person A
You have a serious problem. You promised your daughter a new bike for her birthday. Due to
your very busy travel schedule, you could not even look for the bike until today (Friday). Her
birth day is tomorrow and the party is at noon. You are feeling guilty because you have not
been able to spend a lot of time with her lately. In fact, you promised her not only buy her a
bike but also go riding with her on the weekend. You cannot disappoint her.

You called several stores and finally found one which had the bike that exactly matched the
size and color she wanted. It must be a very special and specific bike for her or otherwise she
would not want it. You asked if they would hold the bike for you until you could get there. You
even offered to give to give them a credit card number. The person you spoke to said, “Don’t
worry, no one else is going to buy it. Just get down here.

As you walk down the aisle where the bike is located, you see another person is also heading
for your bike and calling sales person to help. You both reach the bike at the same time and
quickly realize that there is only one bike there. It has sticker on it which says “last one”

Person B

Today is Friday and you have a serious problem. Your daughter bike was stolen earlier in the
week and she is going to use the bike to race tomorrow at noon. She is the defending
champion in the girl’s division.

When the bike was stolen, you promised here that you would get a new one but because you
worked late every night, you have not even had chance to look for it until a few hours ago.
This is the third store you have gone to and it is the only one that has the bike. You spoke
with your spouse earlier and she told you that your daughter was expecting the bike and had
already told her friends that she was going to get one. To quote your spouse, “we cannot
disappoint her”

As you walked down the aisle, you see another person heading for the same bike. You both
reach the bike at the same time and quickly realize that there is only one there. It has a
sticker on it which says “last one”.
Sample of Negotiation Strategy Paper for Person A

Person A’s

Goals

 Keep my daughter happy

 Keep all other family members happy
 Minimize expenses
 Will not lie to my daughter whatever happens
 At least get something out from the negotiation “Never go back home with empty
hands”

Alternatives

Needs

 Get the bike for few days including the afternoon of tomorrow until getting the new
bike. However, let Person B take the bike for the race.
 Do not get the bike but get money at least 30% of price of the bike.
 Let my daughter talk face to face with your daughter perhaps they can simply and
amicably reach agreement.
 Take my daughter to a fun park and go riding there while waiting for the bike from
person B after the race is done.
 Take my daughter to another city’s bike shops but person B shall contribute 30% of
the bike
 Go for auction or bet whoever is lucky will get it.

Wants

 Give person B the bike only for race tomorrow, and bring my daughter to the race.
When the race is finished, the bike will then be returned to my daughter.
 Get the bike but pay for person for Person B’s new bike in the future.
 Do not get the bike but Person B pay for my new bike in the future.
 50% time share for owning the bike and pay 50%:50%
 Take the bike body and give all other parts to Person B as this will fulfill size and color
criteria, then get all other parts from other shops.

Dreams

 Get the bike

 Host birthday party at the race and lend Person B the bike for the race (my daughter
gives the sponsorship for Person B’s daughter)
 Hold the bike until the new bike arrives, then give this bike back to person B with 30%
discount.
 If person B can find a similar bike at least 95% completeness by tomorrow morning
then the bike is his
 Get the bike until new bike becomes available
Person A’s Arguments

 I am sorry I have already made telephone order you are just a little late.
 Let me take the salesperson to confirm with you my telephone order has been made.
 I am sorry the bike is mine. However, I deeply understand your problem and I am
more than happy to help you find a new bike in other shops. Actually, I only come
here to do the final quality check before the bike gets delivered to my home.
 Tell me the reason why this bike should be yours.
 I need to get this bike whatever it takes tell me what you want in return
 It is my daughter birth day tomorrow and I have only one daughter and cannot
disappoint her this year because I have already disappointed her for the last three
years. I hope you understand this.
 I think we are going to get nothing from this long argument we had better find a win-
win solution.
 Why do not you let your daughter talk to mine if they both can agree I have no issues.

Person B’s Goals

 Keep my daughter happy

 Keep all other family members happy
 Minimize expenses
 At least get something out from the negotiation
 Get any bike acceptable for race for my daughter.

Anticipate Person B’s arguments and Provide Response to Person B

Person B’s :
I am sorry I get here before you so the bike is mine
My response :
You may not be aware that I have actually made the order on telephone, I just come here to
check the bike before it gets delivered to my home.

Person B’s :
Can you show me the order of the bike, I think you just make your own case.
My response :
The order is within the salesperson, I can bring him out to confirm with you is that good
enough?.

Person B’s:
I need the bike if I donot get it my daughter will kill me, please understand my situation.
My response :
I understand however I reckon I have even more serious problem than yours. I best thing that
I can help you is my daughter and I can talk to your daughter.

Person B’s:
Tell me what you want in order for me to get this bike.
My response:
Thank a lot for your kind proposal but I only want to make my daughter happy. By loosing this
bike it will make things worst. So I am afraid you cannot help me with.

Person B’s:
Can I buy a new bike for you but give me this one
My response:
Let me call my family if they are OK I am then OK.
Person B’s:
At least please give me the bike for the race tomorrow.
My response:
That’s ok as long as the bike is mine and I will bring my daughter to the race so that she can
have fun there and you need to let her know that the bike is her and she is giving out the
sponsorship by lending the bike to your daughter.

Person B’s:
Why do not you share with me your problem, perhaps we both can find a solution.
My response:
My daughter birth day is tomorrow so I promise her that she will get this bike. Now, tell me
your problem can you give a lot more details to help me work out the solution.

Person B’s:
Why do not you take your daughter to the race once the race is finished I give the bike back
to her.
My response:
Actually, this is not a bad idea, however may I get back to you after I speak to my daughter.
Role Play #1:

Internal Role Play

Dealing with an experienced subordinate

Mr. David, Project Manager of a 300 room new build hotel in Ho Chi Minh

You joined ABC construction company in Vietnam 5 years ago and during your 5 year
services you have build your reputation as a great project leader with a high level of
professionalism.

You are asked to lead a recently won 300 new build hotel in Ho Chi Minh city and you
know that this project has a very challenging milestone of completion. The only way to
accomplish this project on time is to have a very good and strong team to support you on
the project during the course of construction. You then start assembling the project team
and you are now asking your colleague around you to recommend a good and strong
project engineer to assist you on the project.

Mr. Peter is recommended by a few of your colleagues that he is very skilled and
systematic although he usually appears to be difficult to deal with but the most important
thing is that he is now available . With limited time and choices you have, you then
decide to take him into you team. Peter however appears to be mature and quite smart
when you first talk to him.

You have then been working with Peter for the first two months and you have found that
Peter is very skillful and smart but the problem with him is he is not willing to go extra
miles to help you and the team to achieve the project result especially to keep project
progress on plan. He always comes to work a little late in the morning and go back home
exactly on time while other project team members stay late to accelerate the project
progress.

As the project leader, you know that a lot of project team members are watching Peter
and expecting that you would do something to rectify the situation as those team
members feel unfair.

You are thinking to either a) remove him off the project or b) force him to work harder and
longer hours. However, you prefer option b) because Peter is still holding a lot of
information on the work that he is responsible and you are not sure whether you will get
his replacement of the better quality and fast enough otherwise the project progress
could suffer even more if the wrong decision is made.

You have asked Peter to meet you in your project office to discuss about this in a few
minutes.
Role Play #1

Dealing with experienced subordinate

Mr. Peter, Project Engineer of a 300 room new build hotel in Ho Chi Minh

You have been working for ABC construction company for 10 years and you know very
well how to work to survive in this company. In early days of your career with ABC
company you were very ambitious to get to the top of this organization but after some
years you found that not many people recognized your value. In fact, you had extremely
been disappointed that you should have been promoted to a project manager position
many years ago.

That ‘s why you just want to survive here and you may consider other better options
anytime outside the company if offered.

Now, you are asked to join the new project led by Mr. David whom you have never
worked with but you heard that he was a great project leader and you are available and
you need to be doing something here in order to continue surviving.

You believe you have worked well with David and fulfilled your role professionally for the
first two months in the project but you are not sure how David is thinking about your
performance. However, you feel that why other project team members are working
unnecessarily too hard and at the end the productivity is not of much difference.

You are asked by David to meet him to discuss something of which you are not sure of
and you are about to meet him in a few minutes.
Role Play #2

Internal Role Play

Dealing with an authoritative boss

Mr. Michael, Project Director of XYZ company working on the new

airport project of Ho Chi Minh city

You are considered one of the most experienced people in the airport development
industry within Asia region. You joined XYZ company in Singapore where the company
head quarter is located. You have been with the company for 2 years and before you
joined this company you had worked in the airport development industry including
development, design, construction and operations of multiple airports within the region for
the last 20 years.

The XYZ company just won a huge turn key Design and Build contract of the new airport
in Ho Chi Minh city with local government and of course you know full well that this is of a
great opportunity for you to display your performance in delivering this project so that you
may get a chance of a major promotion within this company if you can deliver this project
successfully although you have just worked here for 2 years.

You are a hard working and aggressive person by nature and you always expect that
everyone underneath you have to work harder than you otherwise you would not be
happy and will not hesitate to attack those whom you think work less than you.

You have two main subordinates directly reporting to you including Mr. Robert who is
responsible for all design aspects of the new airport and Mr. Jack who is responsible for
all construction aspects of this project. You like Robert very much because he never says
no to you and he always complies with your instructions and appears to work longer
hours than you. On the other hand, you do not like Jack because he usually have
arguments with you about anything that he does not agree with and it will take you so
much time and effort to explain to him why he has to do this and that. Many times, you
end up telling him to follow the instructions without questions asked because at the end
you are ultimately responsible for this project .

Now, there is a situation when the client has asked you to complete construction of one
of the sections of the airport terminal building one month before the schedule because it
is important for the client to show this first achievement to his minister of transportation.
Of course, the client can not give you an acceleration cost because the budget is also
very tight. You know that you cannot disappoint your client even though his request to
you seems impossible but you need to do whatever it takes to make it. However, in your
mind you know that Jack will never agree with you and you and Jack can potentially end
up with a very bad relationship if you still persist that he must help you deliver this.

You are about to meet Jack to discuss on the client’s important request in the next hour.
Role Play #2

Dealing with an authoritative boss

Mr. Jack, Project Manager - Construction of XYZ company working on

the new airport project of Ho Chi Minh city

You have been working for XYZ company for 15 years in Vietnam and you have always
delivered every project under your responsibility successfully. You have gained a lot of
respect with all your colleagues and managers within XYZ company in Vietnam. That
was why you were appointed to take responsibility of the construction of the new Airport.

You are not only a very reasonable person by nature but you are also flexible if you think
it is important for the team not individual. Your reputation and achievements within XYZ
company in Vietnam has built your extreme confidence and you always put forward you
plan and ideas whenever appropriate and important.

You never worked with and knew Michael before but you heard that he was very
experienced and well known within the airport industry besides his authoritarian style of
management and that was why he was trusted by the company and transferred from the
head quarter in Singapore to head the overall execution of this project.

You have now worked with Michael for several months on the project and you and him
usually do not get along well and he never talks to you politely when he wants something
from you especially when he is upset from something or someone else.

You are also aware that he is accountable to appraise and grade your performance after
this project is finished and you absolutely do not want him to put a negative feedback
about you and at the same time, you will not agree anything that you think it is not
possible because if you cannot deliver what you agree it will also definitely reflect the
negative on your performance any way.

Michael just called you and wanted you to meet him to discuss about something that he
said it was critically important for you and him and you were wondering what he wanted
to talk to you. You are about to meet Michael in the next hour.
Role Play #3

Internal Role play

Project Assignment

Alan, Managing Director (Country Head)

You joined AJ Construction Company in Vietnam in February 2007. At that time, there
were only one project manager and two project assistants left. Your assignments were
not only to achieve company’s targets but also to build up the strong project team.

Now in the middle of November 07, most of projects have been closed and invoiced, your
team members including you are prepared for holidays. Actually, you have already e-
mailed all of them to submit tentative leave plan in order to have a better plan for
everyone.

Danial, your boss who is a regional director based in Singapore regional headquarter just
sent you an e-mail yesterday about a big regional project that he has just got it from
Company A in Singapore. This project covers 7 countries in Asia Pacific. Vietnam is one
of them. The project must be officially kicked off by 15th December 2007 at latest. Danial
also indicated that this was a very high profile project with substantial visibility to
company’s image. On top of that, he mentioned that once we have delivered a great
piece of work to Company A, we will certainly get plenty more work from them. Right now
Company A is also currently using our direct competitors for several construction
projects.

We thus need absolutely maximum commitment and teamwork for this project. Company
A is a multi-million account for AJ construction and it will not look very good if we are to
spoil this key account. No excuse, we must deliver the best quality work for company A.

You are now contemplating who will be a project manager and team members of this
project. The first person that quickly comes into your mind is John. John is one of the
best project managers; his performance has always been second to none. He has gained
so much creditability and respect from many multinational clients and internal team
members.

The problem is that John is about to take his annual leave from 17 th December 2007 to
10th January 2008. You have already officially approved his leave as you thought that
during the past 4 months he has really dedicated to complete his assignments to the top
quality. Moreover, John has never taken any vacations since he has started working
here.

You are about to discuss with John in a minute. You really want him to be a project
manager not only because he is one of your best but also his extensive experience is in
logistics industry. Company A is one the biggest multinational company in logistics that
has offices around the world. John had successfully completed 3 projects in the past
relating to logistics. You are confidence that John will be able to deliver a high quality of
output in a timely manner. You have to conclude this issue very soon and propose all
project team members to Daniel within next 2 days.
Role Play #3

Project assignment

John, Project Manager

You joined the company in October 2006, at that time you reported directly to associate
director in Singapore headquarter because the previous country head resigned and took
more than half of the team with him. Only you and another three core staff remained with
the company. Later on, the company hired Alan as Country head taking executive
responsibility for Vietnam’s business.

You and Alan have got along quite well at work, but lately you felt that Alan has been a
little bit unfair in assigning project workload. During the past 3 months, you had to handle
4 projects while another project manager had 2 or 3 projects at maximum. You talked to
Alan about this before but he said that the forth project was assigned to you because you
used to handle this account very well before.

Now with 4 projects successfully completed, you planned to take leave from 17 th
December 07 and back on 10th January 08. Alan has already officially approved this
leave; you therefore have already planned your trip to Australia with your mother to visit
your sister. Many things have already been organized and completed including VISA
issuance, tickets and accommodation. Your mother has been waiting for this trip after
you postponed it many times before due to company’s continuous workload. This time
you really cannot disappoint her.

Yesterday, Alan came to talk to you and convinced you that he wanted you to be a
project manager for the upcoming important project from company A. You realized that
this regional project was very important as Company A is a very big multinational
company. Normally, the initial phase of a project will take 2-3 months to get completed
including follow up period, you really do not want to come back and rush it up to finish it
within one month excluding follow up period.

You are about to discuss with Alan in a minute. You want to tell him about your feeling
regarding not only you can handle this project, there are also other competent people in
the company who can do the work. Moreover, you really need to take a break after a long
period of dedication. You want to come back from holidays and get ready with fresh mind
to undertake the new coming projects. If the project is kicked off after 10 th of January 08,
you will be more than happy and willing to take it.
Role Play #4

Internal Role play

Compensation bargaining

Mr. Jin, Project Manager of WAM Construction Company in Vietnam

WAM is a multinational company with its head office in USA and you are a local resident
and have been working with WAM branch office in Vietnam for more than 7 years and
your first position with WAM was a site engineer. You worked as a site engineer right
after your graduation for three years then project engineer for two years before being
promoted to a project manager role 2 years ago.

During your career with WAM, you have contributed a lot in making a lot of profit on
projects that you were working on and helped train all junior engineers under your
supervision. You have been liked by all your superiors because of your achievements
and positive attitude towards the company and its senior managers.

This year (2007), the company has just announced its global and Vietnam business unit
financial results. This year profit of Vietnam business unit is 20% less than last year
results because the economy starts to slow down. Your current base salary per month is
$US 2,000 and your have now received the new base salary of $US 2,200 per month.
This is equal to 10% increase. In addition you are given an annual performance bonus of
$US 4,000. You are not satisfied with the salary increase and performance bonus
because of the following reasons

1. Although information about salary and compensation is strictly confidential but

you happened to know that your base salary is the lowest as compared to other
local resident project managers whose responsibility are not different from yours
and a few project managers have not done good works as compared with your
performance.
2. You know from your friends that several construction companies in Vietnam this
year have an average salary increase of more than10%.
3. Last year you had 3 month bonus.

You think that if the company is not fair for you and you are considering seriously to look
for a new job if the company does not change your compensation. Your expectation is to
have at least a 15% salary increase and 2.5 month performance bonus. You have
scheduled to meet the HR manager about this and will meet her in the next hour.
Role Play #4

Compensation bargaining

Miss. June, HR manager of WAM Construction Company in Vietnam

You joined WAM in Vietnam 5 years ago and has just been promoted to HR manager last
year. This is the first year that you need to deal with salary and compensation issue
within WAM company in Vietnam.

As HR manager, you are also a member of WAM Vietnam’s salary & compensation
committee. Other committee members include General Manager, Financial Director and
Operations Manager. You alone cannot make any decision.

You know that Jin is considered one of the high performing project managers within the
branch and you certainly want to keep him happy but at the same time you cannot
recommend a very relatively high % pay rise and high bonus to the compensation
committee.

This is the first year of HR role, you main objective is to keep all high performers happy
but at the same time to keep everyone’s salary within a reasonable and competitive
range otherwise the company will not be competitive and many people will after this
come to ask for more from you.

You also have both the construction industry’s information of salary compensation as well
as WAM’ s internal bench mark as follows

1) Average industry pay rise = 9%

2) Average annual performance bonus = 1.7 month
3) Average WAM pay rise = 8%
4) Average WAM’ s annual performance bonus = 1.5 month

You think that Jim’s pay rise of 10% and bonus of 2 month are reasonable and it will be
very hard to increase the bonus and pay rise as this year the profit is less and the
economy is not good.

Jim is about to come and discuss with you in the next hour and there is a risk of loosing
Jim if he is not really happy.
Role Play #5

External role play

Difficult Corrective Actions

Mr. Burke, Project Manager of AAA Construction Company – Main Contractor of a

new 40,000 SQM Logistics Warehouse facility.

You are a project manager working for AAA construction company on the new 40,000
sqm warehouse facility. As a main contractor, you have employed more than 5
subcontractors to work on your projects. There are 5 major subcontractors on your
project and they include

Company BBB: Piling and Earth Work Subcontractor

Company CCC: Substructure Subcontractor
Company DDD: Superstructure Subcontractor
Company EEE: Civil Work Subcontractor
Company FFF: Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing Subcontractor

You need to deliver the project on time, under budget with good quality. You have only 9
months to construct this new facility from the date of ground breaking or the start of earth
work. Now, 3 months left to the date of completion, you believe that your project will not
complete on time mainly because Company FFF has not performed well to your
expectation although the project manager of company FFF has tried very hard and really
helped you on any requests including acceleration of variations works without extra cost
and time despite they are entitled to that. You think you need to do something to rectify
the situation otherwise the project will not complete on time and the client will not be
happy and can end up charging you a big delay penalty.

After thinking very seriously a few days, you believe that you need to take off some works
from company FFF’ s scope of works by getting another subcontractor (Company GGG)
to do instead. However, that is not easy because

a) The replacement cost of doing the same work by company GGG is 20% higher
than company FFF. Company FFF will never agree to this to deduct this cost
from company FFF’ s contract price
b) You are not sure about the performance of company GGG. It may be worse.
c) Company FFF may stop works if you reduce their works.

You do not have much time to make decision on this because the completion date is
approaching and the risk of penalty charge is high. You are about to talk to the project
manager of company FFF in a few minutes.
Role Play #5

Difficult Corrective Actions

Mr. Egg, Project Manager of FFF Construction Company – MEP Subcontractor of

company AAA

You are a project manager of company FFF responsible to install and test all Mechanical,
Electrical and Plumbing work on the new 40,000 sqm ware house for company AAA who
is a main contractor.

Since the start of this project, you have provided a lot of helps and free services to
company AAA especially some variation works whereby you have done them for no extra
time and cost even though you are entitled to it. Personally, you have a very good
working relationship with Mr. Burke the project manager of company AAA. During the
past several months on the project, Mr. Burke has also made sure that company FFF has
got the monthly payment from his company on time although sometimes the invoices
from company FFF were submitted very late to company AAA.

Now, 3 month left to completion date, you feel Burke is under a lot of stress and he is not
reasonable as before. In fact, Burke talked to you very seriously that your work was very
slow and you needed to do something about it including working overtime and increase
number of skilled workers. You have since increased number of man hours to the level
where you believe this will bring your works to the completion date without any delays.

However, it seems that Burke is still not satisfied and by increasing number of man hours
further more than this level will cost you so much more and you will end up loosing
money on the project resulting in yourself loosing your job.

You are also now prepared to take a more defensive and contractual approach if you
think Burke is not fair for you. You also think that Burke is still relying on your company to
help complete the project on time because the time is of critical importance for Burke. On
the other hand, you are also aware that you may be charged a big penalty if you do not
deliver your work on time (subcontract completion date).

You have just received a call from Burke an hour ago and requested that you come to
meet him in his site office to discuss something and you think it must be this issue.

Note : Contractually, company AAA has two week buffer between subcontract
completion date (when all subcontractors have to complete their works and handover
the works to company AAA) and main contract completion date ( when all works are
complete and company AAA can make the handover to the client).
Role Play #6

External role play

Who should pay for this error ?

Joe, Project Manager of UCA construction company – Main contractor of a

10,000 sqm new paint facility in Ho Chi Minh city

You have been working for UCA company for more than 5 years in the position of project
manager. You have recently been appointed to project manage the new paint facility in
Ho Chi Minh city. As usual you need to deliver the project successfully.

UCA this year only has this project and UCA won this construction contract at a very low
margin (less than 2% of total direct cost), with this in mind you cannot make any mistake
during the course of construction because not only the project will loose money but the
company may not be able to sustain through this difficult time.

Because UCA won this project under a very tight budget so that your construction
supervision team is very slim.

The client on this project has another quality inspection company (WTG) whose job is
only to make sure that UCA is building the project in accordance with the design and
specification. Mr. Ken is the site representative of WTG and he appears to be very tough
and not compromising.

One day in a hot summer, Mr. Ken comes to your site office, makes a lot of noise and
drags you out to the field to see one major piece of concrete road (about 1,000 sqm) built
in front of one building. Immediately, you do not see any problem with the quality as the
leveling and road surface has been done quite perfectly then you ask Mr. Ken what goes
wrong with that major piece of concrete road. Mr. Ken then brings out the tape
measurement and shows you that the thickness of concrete road is 2 cm less than the
design ( the design is 20 cm thick). Mr. Ken believes that UCA tries to save cost and
fooled him so that you receive the written instruction from Mr. Ken to demolish and
replace that whole piece of concrete road just 10 minutes after you come back to your
site office.

Your immediate reaction is to pass on the problem to your civil contractor (APM) who is
responsible to build the concrete road because you cannot absorb the replacement cost
yourself. However, you are also aware that this is not easy as the mistake could partly be
your team’s fault as APM always asked your team to sign off the concrete pouring
inspection forms before any pour shall take place.

You need to find a solution around this as the replacement cost is too high for UCA and
at the same time you need to complete the road work as soon as possible before the 1 st
lot of machinery will be delivered to site and need to use the road as an access to various
buildings.
You are about to talk to Mr. Dan, the CEO of APM in the next few hours after you have
just talked to him in the first round.

Role Play #6

Who should pay for this error ?

Dan, CEO of ACM construction company – civil subcontractor of UCA

Your company ACM has been awarded a subcontract to build 4,000 sqm of 20 cm thick
concrete road within the new paint facility from UCA who is the main contractor of the
project. You are the CEO of ACM responsible for the construction of concrete road.

Your subcontract value is US$ 120,000 and if you complete the project successfully
without any mistake your company can make up to US$ 10,000.

ACM has been a very good subcontractor for UCA for the past 10 years and you have a
very good relationship with UCA’ s CEO. Many times in the past, UCA asked ACM to
help when UCA had problem with some non performing subcontractors and you always
provided all necessary support required.

One day in the middle of the project, Mr. Joe requested that you come to meet him in his
site office as your project manager cannot make any decision on this serious matter. Mr.
Joe starts making noise to you about the road that was built wrongly and Mr. Ken of WTG
asked that the 1,000 sqm concrete road not built to the design specification must be fully
replaced immediately once you have met him.

You then asked Mr. Joe about what went wrong with the road and Mr. Joe told you that it
was 2 cm less than the design. Your immediate response to this is that you will not
replace the whole road but you will only increase the thickness to 20 cm by the method
that is acceptable by the design consultant.

However, Mr. Joe advised you that Mr. Ken was not really happy about this and he is
thinking seriously about telling the client that we are not honest even though this has
never been our intention. You tell Mr. Joe that you need to think about this very carefully
with your project manager and you will come back to discuss with him again in the next
few hours.
Role Play #7

External role play

Closing the project deal

Jennifer, Project Manager of ACCON construction company base in Vietnam

You are about to enter into a negotiation table with Mr. Tom of IHTG a hotel development
and investment company who will potentially be investing heavily in hotel and resort
development during the next five years in Vietnam.

You are a project manager of ACCON responsible to convert and win the contract of a
new build 5 star 500 room resort in Hanoi from IHTG. Your boss was approached by
IHTG a few months ago for the exclusive position without any competition from IHTG
because ACCON has an excellent reputation in building a 5 star hotel at the international
standard in Vietnam.

Your performance bonus directly links to 5 % of profit margin made on this project so that
you main aim is to try to sell the project at the maximum margin but at the same time you
cannot afford to loose this deal although the client seems to have no other choices.

Your boss told you that he has already agreed in principle with IHTG’ s CEO about the
deal structure as follows so that you cannot make any changes to the structure of
this deal. You need only to finalize the details in (b) and (c) as per below

(a) Direct cost (Labor and Materials): to be open book at cost.

(b) Indirect Cost (Preliminaries and Supervision): to be agreed in good faith as %
of (a) and in line with local
market conditions
(c) ACCON’s profit margin (% of (a) ): to be negotiated in good faith
and in line with local market
conditions

After looking at the pre agreed deal structure, the only way to maximize profit margin is to
have a high % in (b) and agree a maximum % margin in (c).

You also checked with the market that building a 5 star hotel in Hanoi generally most
main contractors can sell the project

at 10 – 15 % of the direct cost for indirect cost

at 5 – 10% of the direct cost for profit margin

and the % is depending on the complexity and size of the project.

You also believe that without ACCON, IHTG will find it difficult to get a qualified building
contractor to construct a 5 star standard hotel in Hanoi.

Role Play #7

Closing the project deal

Tom, Project Manager of IHTG a global hotel investment and Development

company

You are about to enter into a negotiation table with Jenifer a project manager of ACCON.
Your job is to finalize the indirect cost and profit margin as a percentage of direct cost as
agreed at cost open book.

Your performance directly links to the bench marks provided by an independent qualified
quantity surveyor that you have employed to give you advices before you will enter into
the negotiation with ACCON.

With the size and complexity of your project, you quantity surveyor has recommended
the following to you.

Indirect cost = 8 – 10% of direct cost

Profit margin = 4 – 6 % of direct cost

You are also aware that without competition ACCON could play a hard ball game with
you but without ACCON you will have difficulty in finding a good contractor to build this
resort for IHTG.

Your boss have told you that although he has agreed the deal structure with ACCON’ s
CEO, you are still able to change this structure as long as you find it appropriate and
reasonable but getting ACCON on board is a priority.
Role Play #8

External role play

Co-project

Adrian : GH graphic house -senior computer graphic (Design Consultant Leader)

Adrian is a senior graphic designer of GH graphic house where its area of expertise is on
2 dimensional works such as POP, Brochures, Direct mail etc. The company is a big firm
with reputation at national level. It has various kinds of clients in its portfolio.

Adrian is responsible for his design unit comprising 7 designers who are working in 5
different teams in the company.

3 months earlier, Adrian’ s team was assigned the work to manage a big client Company
X. This client has been contributing 80% of total revenue for GH during the past 5 years.

This new assignment was to co-work with another supplier called ACA who was claimed
to be the expert in 3 dimensional techniques. Yet, from the client’ s comments, ACA
lacked creativity to produce the work up to client’ s expectation so company X needed
GH and ACA to work together in order to produce the best output within the dead line.

The project was to build model of 3D in order to introduce new experience to people in
the new ways of presentation. This project is critical for the launch of new product and its
deadline is fixed, only one month away and cannot be postponed from client’ s point of
view.

Adrian has learned from his boss that ACA only got this job because of its excellent
connection with one of company X’ s executive directors and its ability to access to
information required to build this 3D. However, it lacks the ability to create innovative
design. In Adrian’s opinion, working in collaboration from two external parties never
works for such a challenging project like this. In addition, you do not want to get involved
in something you do not have good knowledge of how to do it but client insisted that GH
cannot say no to this job.

In addition, Adrian does not want to take any further responsibility for output quality that
comes from ACA Company. Moreover, during the last three months, ACA has put little
contribution to the work and now the project is about one month behind the schedule.
You know in your mind that in going forward if GH is still working in collaboration with
ACH, it will potentially jeopardize the project deadline. Adrian also has another
replacement company (BBB) in mind who can help complete this project successfully and
Adrian would like company X to seriously consider terminating ACA soonest possible.

The term of contract between company X and GH will end within next 3 months and
definitely GH must keep the business with company X.

Adrian is about to have a meeting with Cherry in a minute, she probably would like to
know about work progress.
Role Play #8

Co-project

Company X : Cherry - Project Manager

Cherry is a project manager in Company X responsible for the launch of new product
which never happens in Company X for more than 10 years. It is very important project,
both to company and to herself. As she has been working as a project manager for 5
years and feels that she is fully entitled to be the director of the department. Of course,
with the successful launch of this new product will definitely put her on the map.

The most important one is the sale tools, which needs to be sent to agent for a presale of
the product. This sale kit is a 3 dimensional simulator version. As the actual product is
not finished yet, so you need this simulator to show how the product looks like.

You did hire ACA, a computer graphic company which was highly recommended by your
direct boss that it can access to the product information enabling acceleration to the
whole process. However, you have doubt on its creativity as ACA is just a technician for
you, so you asked for working collaboration from your appointed agency GH to work on
it.

You briefed this project to Adrian 3 months ago and it seemed progress was very slow
since the start. Hence, you asked for a meeting with GH to discuss on the issue as time
is waiting for no one and only one month left to complete the project.

The term of contract between Company X and GH will end within 3 months and
Company X is considering whether to stay or leave GH to the fresher graphic house for
new ideas.

You are about to have meeting with Adrian in a minute, you want to know the progress of
the project since Adrian has been on the project for 3 months since you briefed him. You
want to make sure that he put this project as the top priority and fully commit into it.