The Double-Booked Meeting Room and the Overdue Invoice
You are the administration assistant at Kestrel Design, a 22-person studio. It is Tuesday 10:15 am. Three things are competing for your attention. (1) The finance manager, Priya, needs 14 client invoices emailed before 11:00 am because the month-end payment run closes at noon; she has already approved them in the system. (2) A visiting client, Mr. Okafor, is in reception and believes he has the large meeting room booked at 10:30 am for a two-hour presentation to six of his colleagues. Your booking calendar shows the room assigned to an internal team workshop from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. (3) The studio director, who is away at a site visit, has left a voicemail saying the Okafor meeting is 'important, make it work'. The small meeting room is free from 10:30 am but seats only four. You have no authority to reschedule the internal workshop, and its facilitator is already setting up.
1. Identify the competing priorities in this situation and recommend the order in which you should act, justifying your sequence. (6 marks)
Read the worked answer
There are three competing demands: a hard deadline (invoices before 11:00 am, with a noon payment run), a live client-facing problem (Mr. Okafor and six colleagues arriving for a room that is not booked to him), and an instruction from the director to prioritise the client meeting.
Recommended sequence:
- Acknowledge Mr. Okafor first (within minutes). A client standing in reception is a live reputational risk; delaying acknowledgement while you do paperwork makes the problem worse and looks disorganised. Greet him, confirm the booking confusion honestly, and tell him you will resolve it within a few minutes. This buys time without making promises you cannot keep.
- Send the invoices before 11:00 am. This is a fixed deadline with a financial consequence (missed payment run). It is quick, already approved, and does not depend on anyone else. Doing it now removes the one task that has a hard cutoff.
- Solve the room problem. You cannot move the internal workshop and have no authority to cancel it, so escalate: contact the director or the workshop facilitator to ask whether the workshop can shift to the small room or start later, and offer Mr. Okafor the small room plus chairs brought in from the kitchen area, or an alternative space nearby. Escalation is the correct response because the decision exceeds your authority.
The principle is: deal with the person in front of you, protect the hard deadline, then escalate the decision you are not authorised to make. Doing the invoices first while ignoring the client would be technically efficient but poor service; ignoring the invoices to fix the room risks missing the payment run.
2. Explain how you would communicate with Mr. Okafor and with the internal workshop facilitator, including what you would and would not say. (5 marks)
Read the worked answer
With Mr. Okafor: be prompt, courteous and honest. Acknowledge him by name, apologise for the confusion without blaming a colleague or the system, and explain what you are doing to fix it ('I'm checking our room options now and will have an answer for you in five minutes'). Offer a concrete interim solution - seats, water, a place to wait - so his team is comfortable. Do not promise the large room until you have confirmed it, because a broken promise is worse than the original problem. Do not disclose internal details such as who booked what or that the director is unavailable to make decisions.
With the workshop facilitator: be respectful of their preparation and explain the situation factually ('a client has arrived expecting this room; the director has asked me to make his meeting work'). Ask rather than instruct, since you have no authority over the workshop: 'Would you be able to move to the small room, or start at 11:00?' Offer help with the move. Do not reveal confidential client information, do not criticise the booking system or a named staff member, and do not imply the facilitator is at fault.
In both conversations, keep language professional and solution-focused, confirm the agreed outcome in writing (email or calendar update) so there is a record, and follow up with the director afterwards so the double-booking is reviewed and does not recur.