Herbs selection as the project manager for his new assignment will always needs to evaluate before making any decision. There are many factors which we always need to consider before allotting that to the right person.

According to the case study this project has 2 major requirements…
1. R&D
2. MANUFACTURING

Based on the above requirements herb will perfectly fits for this position he also had experience on working with R&D and MANUFACTURING and he has PhD. But In his previous he only had the limited interactions with the stake holders and the project staff. As a reader, we can say that Herb had a limited knowledge in project management but the decision of making him as the Project manager was the right decision.

There were Communication issues with Alice, Bob, Betty, and Frank.
For each communication issue, where was the breakdown in communications: Encoding, Decoding, Feedback, and so on? 

As a reader of this case study I can imagine that there where communication gaps between all the team members. Alice, Bob, Betty, Frank where not able to maintain their communication skills with Herb. Alice has never spoken that what he was expecting exactly for herb, which leads to herb in not producing the recommendation letter for her promotion. Brett didn’t understand that what was the complete conversation in the terms of making decision for buying all the raw materials.

Alice: Encoding

Frank: Decoding