One of your team leaders is complaining about this one "incompetent" subordinate. You are the manager. You have been asked to join a meeting with HR and Legal to resolve this problem. It seems like no one wants to deal with this controversial employee. How would you think through the problem?

Often, people at work are faced with unknown factors and unexpected situations such as customers’ changing demands, re-work procedures and disruptive technologies. But most of the training they receive only teach them standard skills and procedures. So what happens when they encounter deviations (errors, delays, wrong materials, wasteful processes, etc.) at work? How does one scale from his/her standard skills and roles to capabilities to think through the deviations and find new solutions?

"We need to fix 10 tractors," said John. "Why not just buy new ones?" Peter asked. "The company does not have the budget for new ones and we are hoping that we can still salvage the 10 old tractors," John responded. The two mechanics are trying to fix 10 tractors which have been in storage for several years. The video is only the start of their conversations.

My boss insists that in order to guarantee our server's performance and uptime, we should install load balancers. I have a hunch though, it is not needed. I am not sure what type of analysis I should do to present a solution or alternative.

We have a horrific problem this morning. Our website had 2,000 people trying to attend a webinar. The website failed. It said “The System Encountered an Error.” This has happened in the last 2 months whenever we have 2,000 people or more people.

This lady represents a pattern of how badly customers are handled. Complaints rose to 45% last month and it shows no signs of improving. The customer care department says it is the case of the increasing number of defective products. The production department claims all products pass high testing. Meanwhile, the high rate of returns continues.

We have this shipment in the warehouse that is worth $200,000. It says, it is FOB in Long Beach, CA, but the seller says, it is Roseland, New Jersey. This is a real issue since it is the weekend and I need to distribute this product to all the stores, Also, I don't want to cause over inventory.

Max got involved in a car accident with our client and was filing for an insurance claim. He insisted that he was the victim and not at fault. Our client claims his coverage is comprehensive with third party liability coverage of up to $500,000 and should be enough to cover the damage he has done. However, when I checked our records I saw that he isn't. I'd like to help Max but don't know how to.

I've just been assigned as project manager and I want to be good at this. But I'm having all these issues about delays and unexpected costs. I'm under a lot of pressure to reduce additional costs and stick to the budget. How do I handle this?

Just when I thought I'm done for the day, my boss shows up with more work for me. This happens more often than not. I don't know anymore when my work ends. I'd like to have some sort of work-life balance, but how do I relay it to my boss? How can I solve this?

I have no issues doing my job because that's my responsibility. However, my boss keeps on giving me additional work that I can't attend to them all anymore. How do I handle the situation without him thinking that I'm avoiding responsibilities?

Lately, I've been missing project deadlines. There are several occasions where my team leader asked me for the reports, which I had no idea was already due. It has gotten to the point where projects get delayed and the team blames me for it. What can I do to fix this?