Day 8: Monday the 19th

Today was when we first started our presentation construction. Garrett came up with an outline and I included some of the data (in table format) from the detailed financial spreadsheet that was built the previous day. We were asked to present what we had so far to Professor Lyles. It was somewhat lacking versus what I desired to present but this was not inappropriate for the situation. We did not fully explain the detailed data that we had in the spreadsheet, including a comprehensive income statement and monthly occupancy levels over a two-year period. Thinking that we did not have enough to fill our presentation, Professor Lyles suggested that we conduct more interviews and construct a decision matrix for price determination. This came across as a major change in direction for many of the team members. Li, who had conducted most of the interviews, was very concerned about conducting even more interviews asking different questions to different people after spending the past three days doing so. Brian and Doug were visibly upset because they were worried that all of our previous work had been invalidated. Garrett, who is used to working in a large corporate environment, reacted the same way as did I: no big deal. Drastic changes in direction are a frequent occurrence within our daily work lives. I immediately had a one-on-one meeting with professor Lyles and explained the detailed data that was available to us and what recommendations we were expecting to be able to make. It turned out to be a misunderstanding of how much work had been accomplished and the decision matrix, while still important, did not need to be the primary focus of our report. The team split-up and focused on different areas. Li lead the interview process with the Sales and Marketing management and staff while I lead the data reduction and analysis process.

Because I was out late the previous night and because of my early awaking, I was very tired that night. I skipped dinner and spent time working on the spreadsheet.