Hopefully this question will produce a lively discussion among the students. First, the
three options are to 1) keep her, 2) send her back, and 3) find a third alternative. Each of these options should be considered before making a final decision.
In my experience this scenario is one of the most painful confronting a PM. The rational business answer is that you send her back. Why? In the long run, if the project has a cost blowout, it will jeopardize the company’s earnings and its future opportunities to do more projects. Net result; nobody has a job. As Eli Goldratt says, “The objective of a company is to make money now, and in the future.” As a concerned project manager you could try finding her a better place within the company where she is not prone to layoff. An alternative would be to keep her on the project doing something else and send back someone else. These options must be pursued with the support of other managers and a rational analysis of the skills the company wishes to retain. The company will need to demonstrate that it has a reason to retain her over others; otherwise, the PM and the organization are open to an employment discrimination suit.