Should be a great show tonight . Interesting to see how they cope with the American approach .

Are they going to come over all "Madmen" - smoking 40 day and downing bottles of scotch whilst having affairs with their secretaries?

I am surprised the Beeb had the budget for that

They didn't have the budget which is why not everyone could go, which I found especially cruel on the ones left behind

I didn't think it was cruel on them at all. They weren't there for a holiday, and there was no point sending more people out there than there needed to be. Usually when they go abroad it's for a scavenger hunt task which does require everyone to be there, but on a task like this it makes total sense for half the team to stay in the UK. As Karren said, in the real business world there are companies with offices in various parts of the world that all have to work together.

I know that...but still, to deny some of them the chance to see first hand how business works in the US, was harsh.

Part of the point of the task was to test how well the PMs managed their sub-team when they were separated for the entire task and only able to communicate in certain windows because of the time difference. Mark did OK here - I know a lot of people think him delegating things to Daniel 100% was passing the buck, but I also think it's a necessity on this sort of task where you're only talking to your team once or twice a day. Set your expectations, delegate responsibility, trust them to get on with it. Compare that to Bianca, who didn't bother telling Roisin and Sanjay their team's brand name until they asked 24 hours later and generally left them feeling ignored. In that respect, Mark's performance was far better than Bianca's.

It's easy to underestimate how big a part of a manager's job communication is. I work for a multinational corporation, and even within the UK part of the business I work in fewer than half the people are based at our head office - the rest work at two other sites or from home - so communication is an issue. I'm also part of European and global teams who only ever meet by phone/web meeting and we have just monthly teleconferences. Very easy for communications to break down!

Why? It doesn't influence their business plans, and although markets, people and cultures are different between US and UK, the way business itself works in the US isn't any different to how it works in the UK. (I currently work for the UK arm of a US-based company.)

If I had been Project Manager, I would actually have delegated myself to be part of the UK team so that I could oversee all of the creative decisions on the product, which would ultimately decide win or loss. A deputy PM could lead the US team, and then if you win it's because you've all worked together well and if you lose you can blame it on the US lot.

Thought the over the top joy at getting a trip to New York was a bit OTT. Obviously they knew who was going way in advance, why? because James would of needed a VISA and a nice visit to the US Embassy, weeks if not months in advance. ESTA's would of needed doing at least a day before, as booking flights etc.

Why did James need a Visa?

Google James Hill Apprentice. You'll find out about his previous conviction.

I'm sure there was plenty of logistics going on in the background, but I suspect the production team would have organised ESTAs/tickets on behalf of all the candidates, and then used only the ones they needed.

Ah of course. Thanks

Still doesn't explain the VISA, that would have taken days, weeks, months maybe to organise, and James would of needed to visit the Embassy. They may of used Dublin's Embassy, it's quicker. But James would of known of the trip to the US weeks in advance.

I know there must be ways around this as celebrities seem to get VISA's quite easily, but they still need to go for an interview etc.

The only way around it I suppose is that James already had a VISA, but he did seem excited to go to the US or maybe that was the level of his acting skill.

am i the only one who is baffled by how the drinks got there so quick? then how the finished products got there?

^^ Over night carrier, on a plane I would assume.

I have to disagree, George. The product design was important, but so was everything else the US team did, and it would have taken a brave PM to entrust the all-important final pitch to someone else.

Having said that, I think it's easy to underestimate just how difficult this task actually was. Product design and directing ads take the candidates well out of their comfort zones for starters.

Then there's the communication issue - Bianca made an elementary mistake in not communicating the Big Dawg name to Roisin and Sanjay before they started working on the design, indeed it wasn't until she was asked 24 hours later that she told them. I got the impression the UK and US teams were only allowed to communicate at certain times of the day, which makes clear comms a much bigger challenge than on normal tasks where the sub-team is only a phone call away and the teams often change their compositions mid-task, whereas here they were fixed from the start.

Finally, there's team balance and delegation. Mark understood that he couldn't do everything better than Bianca - he communicated to his team as best he could, gave them responsibility (yes, I know that also equates to handing off blame!), made them feel valued and let them get on with it. Bianca had to have info dragged out of her and left her sub-team feeling ignored and like second class citizens.

I didn't buy Sugar's statement that taking two lawyers to NY was a mistake. It was in hindsight, but Mark elected to take two intelligent, articulate professionals over someone he thought was best suited to make the product (Katie) and another who has consistently failed in front of customers (Daniel). That seemed sensible enough to me.

Yep, easy enough with an international courier. The five-hour time difference also worked in their favour. The products could have been manufactured overnight, loaded on to an early morning cargo flight from the UK and landed at lunchtime UK time - i.e. breakfast time in NY.

I was waiting for the can to turn up in the US with the words "Big Dog" on it. As it wasn't shown in the edit that the words needed to be "Big Dawg"

Wasn't it James who said in the house that maybe they'd be going to China? Hamming it up again ...

I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it is possible to expedite getting a visa - I think it just involves an additional cost to put it through a fast-track process.

But it would still need an interview, and criminal checks etc. It can take up to 6 months to get the interview, thats why travelers use Dublin a lot, its less busy so interviews can be arranged quicker. So even paying extra, it would still take more than 1 day.

Yeah, I don't know how they managed it - but clearly there are ways and means ...

Re the visa they could have said at the start of the whole thing there will be a trip abroad you'll need visas etc but not mentioned the when's or where's so it could have been any week and there would be no guarantee that they would make it far enough to go on the trip. That way it could have still been a surprise that this was the week they were actually going.

Perhaps he lied on his ESTA, wouldn't put it past James. You would think as you rightly said the production team handles all this, so maybe one of the "told a porky"